Desperation
by Maurauve
Summary: Harry's a good friend. But when he tells his best friend that he'd do anything for her, he doesn't expect to be offering to father a child with her to save her from the impending Marriage Law.
1. Chapter 1

Hermione impatiently drummed her nails on her briefcase in the foyer outside the Minister's office. Two intimidating aurors stood on either side of the large wooden door as ministry officials whizzed past her.

For the past two years, her eagerness to prove herself to those around her hadn't quite worked in her favour. She was constantly being pushed to the side so that those around her - pureboods - could move up in the ranks. Despite the war's conclusion that blood purity meant nothing and that people are people, Hermione still faced regular insult in the form of shoulder shoves, lewd remarks and invitations to big parties to play the role of token muggleborn or worse, as a publicity stunt.

As it stood, her largest accomplishment thus far had been a promotion to a senior member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She knew when she accepted the position that she would have major climbing to do to win the trust and approval of her fellow associates, and it helped that she was considered to be the brightest witch of her age, but the world couldn't change in a day. Apparently it couldn't even change in a year.

Kingsley told all of them after the war that it might even take a lifetime for change to fully take root, and most people wouldn't like it when it happened to them. But it was the cost of change, and Hermione supported the change he opted for; blood mania would no longer exist, and the promise that none of their future children and grandchildren would ever have to fight how they fought.

Hermione looked back up to the clock, annoyed with herself for her temper starting to flare up as she tried to reign in the harsh comments she just barely kept quiet.

"I'm sorry," she started, getting the attention of the young wizard sitting behind a large desk strewn with papers and schedules. "I've got an important meeting with the Minister that ought to have started well over fifteen minutes ago. I'm a busy woman, I've got other meetings to attend to."

The young wizard jumped from his chair and stuttered an apology.

"I-I'm sorry Miss Granger, Ma'am, I'm sure the Minister will be with you shortly."

"I should hope so," Hermione said as she rolled her eyes. She did not like to be called Ma'am. She wasn't nearly old enough for such a title at 24. Biting her lip, Hermione wondered if she were being too hard on the boy. It wasn't his fault that she was in such a bad mood this morning. Perhaps if Ron hadn't been picking fights all week she would be better at handling something as trivial as a late meeting and not be giving death glares to a young man who had no control over the Minister's meetings.

Finally the door swung open and silencing charms were taken down and Hermione could hear the raucous laughter of a large group of men as they left Kingsley's office.

Without a word, he gestured to Hermione.

"I hope that joke was well worth it, Minister," she grumbled when she sat down across from him, who rose an eyebrow at her sour attitude and gave her a tight lipped smile.

"So, Hermione. What is on the docket today? Bring me up to speed."

"Well," she began, taking a breath. "The house elves are still not wanting to meet with me. I've dispatched some of my people to see if we can come to an accord with them, but I'm afraid my reputation precedes me. It seems that their case will have to be handed over to Dammerford despite all my efforts to work with them in the past. The centaur herd out by Hogwarts has been in touch and we have some new legislation that we have to get their approval on. I've corresponded with their representatives and we are looking to build centaur-safe villages where they are welcome and commonplace, just as we did with the werewolf communities."

"Aren't you afraid that a village like that will breed division between wizarding society and the centaurs? We saw what happened with Villa Luna. It's entirely inhabited by the werewolves - as much as integration sounds good on paper, most of the wizarding families chose to leave the town completely. Now Villa Luna is in need of help from the ministry because they don't have a fully sustainable community inside the town borders and vendors aren't feeling especially motivated to stroll into the heart of a werewolf community. Especially when considering what Fenrir Greyback was like… he traumatized too many people."

Hermione nodded, anticipating this.

"Yes, and I need to discuss something with you shortly about werewolves in a moment. But my centaur liaison, Dennis Creevey, has assured me that the centaurs aren't seeking a village like the werewolves. They are perfectly happy living in the forest. They just want access to villages that won't try to get rid of them if they happened across the street. Think about their children and how excited they would be to stroll down Diagon Alley like we got to do."

"I see where you're coming from, Hermione, but what you're suggesting would mean pinpointing communities near the herds and buying out any muggle families and then on top of that, buying out wizarding folk who would prefer not to live in such close proximity with the creatures."

"I think you'll find that you can share a street with someone you don't care for and still manage to lead a perfectly satisfactory life, Kings. It isn't a matter of Creature versus Wizard. It's a question of soul versus soul, and after the war, nobody could rightly claim that they are better than any other just because of blood or something as trivial as what you're suggesting."

"The optics of it are on the right path and I am sure I could find seats on the Wizengamot to back your claim, but the fact of the matter is that it's all fine and good when it's happening to someone else. Do you seriously believe that a family like the Pucey's wouldn't fight to align themselves with forward-moving politics, vote for your proposal just to look good for the press, and then push the resulting community into near desolate locations? Villa Luna was a lovely idea, Hermione. But it's better thought up and dreamt of than it actual practice."

Noticing the deflated look on her face, he put his arms onto the table and leaned over his desk to look her in the eyes.

"Look, draft some plans and have my assistant book a meeting with you, Dennis and myself. We'll talk more about that in a week after I get a chance to do some of my own research on the matter."

Perking up, Hermione smiled and remembered something she needed to get off her chest.

"Thank you, sir. Now about the werewolves… Kingsley, it is no surprise that we lost a lot of people during the war. I totally understand the need for a complete account of all wizarding families in Britain, but in the recent census done, the Ministry asked for strange information. Werewolves and Veela want to know why they've been excluded from this census. Why discriminate against people who are active members of society just because they aren't entirely like the rest of us?"

Kingsley shifted in his seat, uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry. All I can tell you is that the werewolf and veela populations weren't left out for any discriminatory reasons - they just didn't fit what the census was aimed to collect. I know you have the best intentions and that this is your job, but the census is strictly private. As much as I wish I could discuss this with you, I can't. Not now, though I'm sure you'll understand in time."

A knock on the large doors cut him off before he could continue. The young wizard from the desk poked his head through.

"Lord Greengrass is-" Kingsley raised his hand to cut the boy off from speaking further.

"Hermione, I'll be back in a moment. My apologies for the intrusion."

Hermione nodded and closed her mouth before she could say the first thing that came to mind.

When Kingsley closed the door, Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. Her day was far too busy to be kept waiting and then intruded upon. Looking at her watch, Hermione growled in frustration. She was going to be late for her other meetings and lunch with Harry that, though it wasn't entirely necessary for her job was actually very necessary for her sanity.

Kingsley had only been gone a few moments when a thick brown folder with papers stuffed into it haphazardly caught her eye. Hermione knew not to look, but couldn't help herself. She cursed her curiosity and after a minute of straining her ears to hear any hint of Kingsley's return, Hermione stretched a tentative hand towards the folder.

She tried to open it, but quickly discovered that it was heavily warded.

Curious, Hermione thought to herself, turning it slightly to get a better look. The magical signature very clearly stated that the folder was meant to be in the care of the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement, with instruction to only be opened by a council that Hermione's couldn't quite make out.

Trailing her fingers across it as if it were a dusty book, Hermione bit her lip as she pondered what was in the folder that needed to be kept hidden, and what council was so private that even she hadn't heard of it. An idea struck her, and her fingers sped to the sides of the folder where papers weren't returned neatly and confidentially. She knew they papers wouldn't come out, but if she turned through the corners she might be able to find something useful.

She couldn't make out anything other than a couple of names, but the two that she saw weren't helpful in the least. Of course Kingsley would be on it, and of course Lord Greengrass, who acted as head of the DMLE. Hermione took out her wand and examined the folder. It was warded carefully, but predictably. Whoever was in charge of protecting the folder had not anticipated anybody but whatever council it belonged to trying to open it. Hermione could easily hack into it if she was given enough time. They felt awfully similar to the wards she'd been studying in her personal time. It was uncomfortable to admit that she spent an unusual amount of time taking long detours from her daily errands to be near the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement, especially since Ron was frequently inside the short hallway and she rarely went in to greet him. It was a guilty pleasure, she knew, to spend so much of her time absorbing the wards that the DMLE kept. It was her underlying Ravenclaw tendencies demanding that she figure them out entirely, but it was her overbearing Gryffindor-ness that screamed that she ought to find out what was exactly inside the Department, and what was more, what was inside the office that she had only ever been invited into twice by the Lord Hyperion Greengrass himself.

Drawing out her wand, Hermione focused on the folder and with one hand moved her wand in short, deliberate strokes while her other hand tugged on the paper that held a list of names. When it didn't loosen immediately, her brow furrowed and a small beat of sweat collected at the nape of her neck. She pushed more of herself through her wand and after a few more ministrations of her spellwork, the paper tugged itself from the rest of the stack by several inches, allowing her to see several more names. There was Malfoy, not entirely a surprise to her, but the other names caught her eyes. Nott Senior, Francis Galvin, Hubert Cubbins, and perhaps ten more. She recognized some of them from her daily life working in the ministry, and suspicion nagged at the back of her mind when she remembered the group of men Kingsley had been meeting with before their own. Most of the people on the list that she could recognize were there earlier, in that very room.

She scanned it over and locked it into her memory.

She was absolutely sure that the entire council had been present, she could remember roughly the same amount of people leaving Kingsley's office. But where were Lord Greengrass and Lucius Malfoy in all that?

It was possible that she just hadn't noticed them, but they were both striking characters and she wasn't sure, even after therapy and years of safety, that she could ever cross paths with Lucius Malfoy and not shiver. She frowned then, wondering if perhaps she really had missed him and if she did, was this a good sign? Was this all a part of healing?

The fact that she could even miss her superior, Lord Greengrass, astounded her. She'd only ever been invited to his office twice, and both times she resented the childish glee that she remembered feeling when a teacher congratulated her on an essay or an exam she did well on.

Hermione snorted. How she could think of sitting before an entitled pureblood Slytherin an honour, she could not fathom. He was tall, with dark features and a sharp nose. Hermione had gone to school with his two daughters, Daphne in her year and Astoria a few years after, but they didn't look a thing like their father. Though she couldn't quite imagine how Daphne looked these days, the pictures of Astoria in all the magazines and newspapers assaulted Hermione with images of perfect pale skin and soft blonde hair. The public engagement between her and the ferret had been announced only two weeks before and since the moment she stepped out with the largest ring Hermione had ever seen, the two of them have been front page stories.

Resigning herself to her curiosity, Hermione pushed the folder back into position on Kingsley's desk as the door reopened and the Minister walked in astride Hyperion Greengrass, who curled his lip at her without a word while he reached over her for the folder she had been trying to get into.

"Good day, Minister," he said lazily as he bowed slightly before leaving.

"I'm just saying, next time you're late, just please give me a bit of room to nag you about it. It's not every day I have anything against you," Harry laughed over his coffee as Hermione rolled her eyes in response.

"You have nothing against me at all, Harry Potter, and I do not nag. Have you seen Ron at all this week?" She asked, changing the subject. She smiled and tried to push down the coiling in her stomach that made her skip ordering anything for lunch other than a strawberry smoothie.

Harry grimaced.

"Yeah I've heard from him, and he's being a right prat. Just ignore him. Ginny told me he's thrown another hissy fit and run off on another abroad trip."

"How many aurors need to be sent abroad?" Hermione huffed, "it seems every time he and I have a row he has an out of the country assignment. How many dark wizards are there?"

Harry smiled, clasping her hands in his while he dipped his head down to steal a sip of her smoothie from the straw haphazardly leaning in his direction.

Hermione laughed and pushed him away, playfully protecting her drink.

"Listen, I know Ron's been difficult, but he just needs some space."

"Space from what? We don't live together. We hardly ever see each other and when we do, it's hardly ever alone!"

"I think that's part of the problem, honestly. Maybe he's trying to get you to miss him?" Harry offered, leaning back in his chair.

"That's possible," Hermione resigned, sitting back as well. "I don't care all that much anyway right now."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" She asked when Harry didn't speak.

"You've been in a wretched mood, 'Mione, I doubt you seriously don't care all that much."

Hermione nodded.

"It's not just about the whole Ron thing. I've just spent the past couple hours with a bad stomach ache about something and it's getting me a bit wired."

"What is it?" Harry asked, leaning in with a whisper. "Did Kings refuse to add werewolves and veela to the census?"

This time Hermione grimaced. "He didn't outright refuse, but he wouldn't tell me why they were excluded in the first place. He said that it wasn't discriminatory, but that they didn't fit into the information that the Ministry was looking for. I meant to ask more but Lord Greengrass showed up and bludgered the rest of my meeting with Kingsley. He was too distracted to get anywhere with anything after that, pretty much made the whole meeting a waste of time that, may I remind you, I was kept waiting for."

Harry's brows knit together. "That doesn't make any sense. It was a census, wasn't it? It should include all of Wizarding Britain, not just a select few."

Hermione nodded again, slowly. She bit her lip and focused on her smoothie. Something wasn't sitting well in her stomach.

"Unless…"Harry started, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. "Unless it wasn't really a census…"

Hermione cocked her head to the side. "What makes you say that?"

"The stuff they asked for… It wasn't exactly typical stuff, was it? I understand the age and gender, hell, I even understand asking about our income and allergies and careers, even what bloody house we were sorted into if we went to Hogwarts. But the saliva sample? The hair sample, too? How are those really necessary?"

"Maybe you've been blind to what muggles can accomplish with just a saliva sample, but you can easily do ancestry tests with that DNA, and with that DNA, you can also find out a person's genetic disposition to illnesses and how the body processes or reacts to a great many things."

"Why would the ministry want to know that stuff though?"

"I don't know, maybe so we can avoid the exact problems that led to Tom Riddle's success in the future. And maybe those Pureblood families are starting to worry about all that inbreeding they did?"

"What if it's a way to prove blood purity?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me?"

"What if Malfoy and his friends are looking for empirical proof that they're better?"

"I've looked into all of this already, Harry. It's impossible to find blood purity. Either you have the magical gene or you don't. There's no variation depending on who has family members with the gene. Malfoy's will be no better or worse than mine. If anything, perhaps this saliva test will come back and prove that I have magical lineage somewhere." Harry nodded to her, silent for once as he sat watching her.

"You don't look totally convinced, Hermione, and it's your own argument." Harry said after a few minutes of silence.

"I know."

"What else is there that you're worried about?"

"I- I don't quite know. I just feel like there's something I'm missing. For some reason, I keep thinking back to something Kingsley had in his office today." Hermione looked up at Harry's interested eyes nearly begging her to continue. Though Fudge and Dumbledore were long gone, Harry's brain automatically jumped to conspiracies every chance it got.

"I've been hearing through the gossip chain that Kingsley's been holding a bunch of top-secret meetings. He was in one today, it nearly ran me out of the time I had with him for my meeting with him. The whole lot of them were on the Wizengamot and a bunch work as high ranking ministry officials. None were from my department, but I recognized a bunch of them. Then, during the meeting, Hyperion Greengrass just showed up and Kingsley left me alone in his office. I snooped around a bit," Hermione earned a cheeky grin from Harry at that, "and found a folder that looked suspiciously plain next to all of Kingsley's colourful papers and whatnot. I took a peek and it was some Council that had some of the same people written on it that were in the office before me. I didn't recognize most of them but the names sounded familiar."

"What kind of council? What about it tipped you off?"

Hermione shook her head a bit.

"I don't know why it's got me feeling so weird. It just makes me feel… it makes me feel really bad. I don't want to doubt Kings, he's been with us for so many years and he saved our lives so many times during the war…"

"But?"

Hermione looked down solemnly.

"But he's not the same as back then. Everything has changed. We're not fighting for our lives anymore. I want to trust him but something just feels wrong…"

"Look, Hermione. I know you want to believe that Kings has got the best in mind for us. I know I want to believe that. But even I've heard rumours going about," Harry whispered in forced tones. He sounded almost angry as he squared his jaw to keep from attracting any attention.

Hermione looked up at him, skeptical. He looked positively unabashed when he widened his eyes to her. After so many years of trusting Harry's instincts, Hermione picked up on his body language immediately.

"What do you know, Harry Potter?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

"We've been instructed to keep quiet, but the Auror department recently learned that there will be new legislation put in place soon. Really soon. Like a few months away soon. We've been told that we'll be working security for some people in the ministry after this new law is made public."

Hermione's eye twitched. "It's believed to be unpopular enough to need aurors to protect those that pass it?"

Harry nodded and sat back in his chair. Drumming his fingertips on the table, he absently scratched at his beard and cracked his neck.

"I don't have a good feeling about this," she said finally after a few minutes of silence. Harry raised his eyes to meet hers and she stared through the sun glinting through his glasses to meet his.

Then, cutting through the moment, Hermione's muggle watch started beeping, and Hermione stood and left Harry still pondering conspiracy theories.

Later that day, Harry pulled his coat off of the rack at the front door of the Auror Department and turned to say goodnight to the few brave souls who would be working their overnight shift. Ron, who was scheduled for nights this week was gone and as expected, Terry Boot and Andrew Anglehorn were less than pleased by their sudden night in the office alone together.

"Did you see McLaggen's face when Lord Greengrass came 'round?" Harry heard Terry Boot say aloud. Cormac's father, Finian McLaggen, sat as Chief Auror and wasn't nearly as much of a prick as his son. Whatever it was that made Cormac such a pompous fool in Hogwarts was something his own father clearly wasn't genetically predisposed to, thank Circe.

"Poor sod's got too much on his plate," Andrew replied, tossing a muggle football up in the air. "What do you suppose Greengrass said to him that made him turn white as a ghost? He ran out of here in seconds looking like he ate one of those Weasley treats."

"Speaking of Weasley's… how does Ron keep getting out of these shifts? Seriously, mate, any of us would be fired by now if we pulled the shite he pulls."

"It's because he's a war hero, but it's bullocks. We all fought. We all lost people. Special treatment time should be over."

Harry sat down in his office, leaving the door open a crack to listen in, but when the conversation turned into prattle about which girls they fancied, Harry leaned back in his chair and contemplated everything Hermione had said over lunch.

She knew to trust him, but even more was that he knew to trust her. While the war ended for him, Hermione still lived in it. She surrounded herself every day with the very people who would have seen her imprisoned or killed, trying to stand up for others like her or worse off. Harry knew that she had become hardened, but the moment she felt genuine fear was the moment he knew he had to stand up. Even if it turned out to be nothing, he would help her.

Harry pushed open the door to Hermione's small flat that night and stood with his jaw hanging at the sight of her sitting in the middle of the living room floor with papers adorning the walls and books on the floor. Her hair was pulled back, once in a braid atop her head though by now it hung loosely down her back with stray hairs frizzing around her head. Her eyes were dark and worn, wand between her teeth, as she took a muggle highlighter and highlighted a section of text from a stack of papers in front of her.

Harry took a tentative step towards her and raised his arms slowly to keep from startling her.

After so many years of witnessing her sleep-deprived and obsessed, Harry lowered himself to her level and spoke slowly.

"Hermione," he whispered, gently pulling the wand from her teeth.

She barely registered him, but let go of her grip on the wand easily.

"Hermione," he tried again to get her attention and this time succeeded. Her eyes frantically met his.

"What is all this?"

"You were right, Harry, you were so right. The census, the memos you've been getting," Hermione lifted a finger to point to a series of stained papers - papers that he'd filed in his office not even 5 hours earlier. How had she gotten them? He'd been in his office until the moment he left to stop by her place…

"Look here," she stood and motioned to him to come to stare at all the papers lined up on her walls. He wouldn't have been surprised to find yarn lines and pictures with their eyes crossed out, but he stood and let her guide his eyes to the section highlight which members of the ministry would be getting their own security detail. There were a few that were a given; Kingsley always had aurors with him, and so did Lord Greengrass. Lucius Malfoy, though, had him scrunching his eyebrows together. He read more names and each confused him more than the one before.

"Those names all sound familiar, but I don't have a clue where I know them from…" he murmured.

Besides him, Hermione nodded and pointed him towards a stack of newspapers and magazines.

"Almost all of those men have children who have publicly announced engagements in the past month. The others either have no children or children who are married already. But the engagements… they've been splashed across every public platform. We'd be hard pressed not to know that Draco is engaged to Daphne's sister, or that Nott is marrying Slughorn's great-niece. Ask yourself, why are they all announcing things at the same time, though the wedding dates are so widely spread out?"

Harry read the front pages of all the newspapers and magazines Hermione had gathered into a messy pile and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Why would these specific people need a security detail?"

"Each of these names were on the list I saw in Kingsley's office."

Harry looked up to her. "Are you sure?" he asked cautiously.

"Positive. I watched it all again through the pensieve, "she waved her arm behind her to the kitchen, where a floating pensieve caught Harry's attention. Where had she gotten a pensieve from? "These are all the names on that council. You know what that means, then."

Harry peeled his eyes from the pensieve and the mass of papers scattered throughout her living room.

"Sorry, what? What does this mean?"

Hermione's eyes glinted with frustration.

"We're going to break into Lord Greengrass' office. Tonight. I know I can get into the folder if I have enough time."

Harry's face paled.

"Excuse me? Hermione, are you insane? You could be thrown into Azkaban for even just the suggestion of that. He's dangerous"

"Come now, Harry, I wouldn't ask you to do this with me if I had no clue what I was going. I've spent months studying the wards around the DMLE-" Harry's brows shot up at that. "I know I can do it. I just need the time."

This time Hermione's eyes conveyed no frustration. Instead, Harry was astounded to see sparks of excitement course through her, hints of it in her hair and in her eyes. Nodding, Harry took off his jacket and strode into the kitchen. He filled the kettle with water and placed it on the burner before turning to sift through her cupboards for two mugs and tea bags.

"Walk me through your plan," Harry sighed, turning towards her and leaning back on the counter. "I trust you."


	2. Chapter 2

Harry strode into the ministry intending to look like he was there with a sense of purpose, much like he did when he was on a case. He tried envisioning himself hurrying through the halls as if he had an urgent problem; a dark wizard on the loose or an attack that he was to see to.

Though, however much he wanted to appear absolutely in charge and in control of the situation, he couldn't help the occasional delays that had him stopping every so often to… check his watch. Or his shoes. Had he dropped something? Maybe he should pretend to clean his glasses.

He guessed that if anybody were actually watching him, they'd pick up on some very curious body language, some very vague puttering, and some awfully strange noises that seemed to appear from absolutely nowhere.

Luckily for Harry, though, most people passed him without a second glance. It was dark out, and though he wasn't scheduled to work security, he came in frequently enough in his free time that only a select few would question him, no matter the odd behaviour.

The DMLE wasn't hard to find, it was labeled very well and easy to direct people to as there were large signs pointing to it just as there were signs pointing to bathrooms. The only problem, or rather… the first problem… was that Harry had to pass through a bunch of other departments and pass by a lot of people to get to his office. Normally he was fine, but normally he didn't have Hermione walking behind him draped in his invisibility cloak.

"Don't keep looking back," she hissed as he turned to glance at her again just to make sure that they wouldn't be given away by something as trivial as feet brushing under the cloak. He knew, of course, that she was small enough to walk with the cloak and not have any problems being covered. But he also knew that she had a bad habit of holding it up around her feet to keep her from tripping on it.

"Then make sure to keep the hems down in front of your feet. I've seen your shoes twice already," he responded, trying to keep his voice down.

Hermione snorted.

"You're walking too fast for me to safely walk behind you the way you're suggesting. Would it be better if I tripped up and blew the whole plan?"

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I don't even see why you need the cloak. You work late all the time, and so do I. You're my best friend, 'Mione. We've been known to wander together during breaks if we're both here after hours. Nobody would think anything's awry if they were to see us casually strolling through the ministry," he grumbled, partially amused by her muffled huffs and partially anxious about their intended heist.

"I don't want there to be any trace that I was here. So," she elaborated, "nothing can be out of the ordinary. You have to do exactly as you usually do, which is precisely why we used the floo you normally come in and not the closest one."

"I like the walk," Harry said defensively.

"I never attacked your walk, keep your voice down. What I'm trying to get at is that if they somehow figure out that the wards have been tampered with, I want there to be no record of your magical signature on anything. That way they can't suspect either of us. You couldn't have done it and I wasn't even there to do it in the first place. That's why it has to be business as usual. Nothing out of place."

"Your signature is just as distinct as mine, and I doubt very much that Greengrass wouldn't assume straight away that I'm the one to have gotten you in. If he recognizes your magic at all, we're done for."

"I'm sorry, Harry, but did we not agree on this plan before we left?" She asked, tripping up on the cloak again until she fell over in it, her feet flashing out from underneath. She gasped and hid her feet quickly just as Harry coughed loudly and dropped his briefcase, spilling out a handful of papers all across the floor around them, drawing eyes to himself just in the moment that Hermione was making the most amount of noise. She rolled her eyes under the cloak and crossed her arms, waiting for the people to keep walking.

"Need any help?" He asked quietly, a smile tugging at his lips.

"As if that wouldn't look suspicious. 'Oh, look at that suspicious boy as he strangely gestures about the air, how suspicious that is.' No thank you, just please collect your things and quit talking so loud, people are going to notice and-"

"And think I'm acting suspiciously? Yeah, I picked up on that. Besides, I only did that to make up for the noise you were making, jeez Hermione, you're not as conspicuous as you'd like to believe."

Chuckling, Harry collected his things and secured them in his briefcase when he felt a cloaked hand press up against his back as Hermione did, in fact, use him to help her up. He smiled cheekily without looking up at her or acknowledging her and stood, stretched his arms wide (rather suspiciously, Hermione noted), and made towards the large atrium.

Hermione's eyes darted around the hallways and open areas, zeroing in on the strangers and bystanders still milling around though the work day was long over. There were the predictable temps and interns, rushing about though their eyes were well worn and bleary. She remembered back to when she herself was an intern for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Arthur had graciously given her an opportunity to intern for the Obliviation Headquarters and, while she was very good at the work and very pleased with her results, she found that it bore too close of a resemblance to the obliviation she'd performed on her parents. The department was sad to see her go in the end, but that's when she was hired on by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and she found that she quite enjoyed getting paid.

She watched with a ghost of envy on her lips as the interns, indisputably working for the Department of Magical Games and Sports, ran about in frenzied groups trying to stick large posters up against the walls of the hallways and atriums.

Beyond the laughable young groups were the people just like Hermione and Harry; people they'd grown up with who either had it made or were still in the process of making it. The former rarely stayed late, though Hermione spied a particular Theodore Nott sitting on a bench staring absently at a group of interns as they tried to hoist up a young woman attempting to pull down a poster someone had stuck up incorrectly. The remaining people around were either night shifts, antisocial people who chose to work when it was mostly quiet, and Aurors working security. Hermione had a nagging feeling that both she and Harry would find themselves middle-aged and becoming the people who worked night shifts; her for the work and Harry for the silence.

As they finally rounded the corner to the DMLE's short hallway, Harry paused outside the door and motioned for Hermione to come closer to him.

"Listen, I want you to stay out here until I give you the signal. Don't come in until they're gone. Give them a wide berth, remember?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and nodded.

"I'm going to assume you're either nodding or I'm having a very secret conversation with a very engaging, yet quiet, wall."

"Harry!"

"Alright alright, no secret wall conversations right now. Those will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll see you in my office then," he whispered with a wink before turning to enter the bullpen.

As it happened, Hermione barely had to wait at all for Harry to get rid of the two men. Within a minute they were pushing open the door and laughing all the way down the hallway as they made their way to the closest floo exit and disappeared.

She pulled off the cloak when she entered Harry's office and set it down on one of the chairs. Harry's back was to her and he was bent over a large filing cabinet, checking the walls of the inside and knocking on it in different places.

"What did you tell them to get them to leave?" She asked while she pulled her hair into a tight bun on the nape of her neck. She couldn't have it in the way when she started with Lord Greengrass' office, so she made extra sure that it was secure on the back of her head by casting a few sticking charms.

"Something about Ron returning to a less than pleasant conversation…"

This piqued her attention.

She whipped her head around so quickly her neck cracked, giving her a slightly uncomfortable headache. 'Not a great start,' she thought to herself before remembering what he'd just said.

"Ron's coming back tonight?"

Harry's eyes widened a bit and his hands shot up to his sides as if she were arresting him in a muggle cop movie.

"Not at all, just said that to get them out of here. You know I'd tell you if he were coming back, yeah?"

Hermione nodded to him and then took a deep breath. Looking up expectantly at Harry, he nodded in return and led her towards Lord Greengrass' office. After so long together, they rarely needed to speak. They molded to body language and cues so far back that neither could remember when they'd become so familiar with each other's body or their habits.

Hermione smiled when she reached the office, she smiled because she recognized it immediately through feeling the wards. It brought her comfort during her detours; she admired the talent that went into creating and maintaining the protective wards and though Harry might be miffed to learn how fast she would dismantle them, electricity coursed through her yet again.

Harry leaned forwards to wiggle his fingers through them.

He was given lots of responsibilities for an Auror his age. He had his own office, had his own mailbox in the ministry and even had a verbal offer from both Lord Greengrass and Finian McLaggen that when McLaggen retired in about a year or two the job would be Harry's. All this in mind, Harry was slightly dismayed when the wards didn't automatically open up to him. He'd never been keyed into them, but the hope was there, and now it wasn't.

Putting the thought behind him, Harry whistled quietly.

"There're a lot of wards in here, 'Mione, how do you suppose you'll get through them?"

Hermione took a deep breath and removed a shrunken notebook and a pencil from her pocket. Handing them to Harry, who enlarged them and sat down with the papers, she took a step towards the wards and touched her wand to the outer shell of it.

It was a basic repellant; a simple charm meant to disorient anybody who ought not be there. Harry probably couldn't even feel it, but she could. She could feel it clouding her mind already, so she took a step back and looked at Harry.

"We're going to dismantle them one by one, and you're going to write down each one. If we ever need to get in again, I want to have a spell ready to do it all in one verse."

Harry's jaw dropped.

"Hermione no. No, no, no. No. No. There are probably 30 different wards in there and any number of them could be dangerous, if not deadly."

"Hush, Harry. It's not like I'm going to take them down completely. I'm just going to put in a bit of a wedge, just enough for us to pass under it. Like a waterfall, Harry, imagine the wards as a waterfall. We just need a good sturdy rock to put up."

Hermione rolled her eyes and held up her wand, already working on the disorientation charm. It took a minute, but it flaked down around her like tiny invisible snowflakes. When the last touched the ground, she smiled and turned towards Harry, instructing his note-taking.

Every ward that Hermione broke through, that she dismantled piece by piece, hit Harry with a worse feeling. There was no way to describe the mounting anxiety. Sure, he'd felt it earlier when Hermione had told him about her fears. Worse, even, when he turned up at her flat to see the horror that was her living room.

But neither could compare to the now mountainous pile of worry he'd accumulated in the hours of impatiently waiting.

He couldn't bear to just sit idly by. He wanted to get in there and help. His job was like a seal of approval that he was actually good at this stuff; he did a whole lot of curse breaking and the whole lot in his line of duty. Nothing quite like Ron's brother, but impressive nonetheless.

All he could do was offer assistance when he could. But just as she'd said, she was incredibly prepared for the task at hand. She must have been studying the wards diligently over the months; she could pick them apart between her fingers if she wanted to. But some were harder to break down than others, and some of them fought back. Fire licked her fingers and crisped her eyebrows down to a shadow.

It would have been funny.

But it wasn't.

When the door finally clicked open, Harry and Hermione stood in shock.

They'd done it. They'd broken into Lord Greengrass' office…

Harry felt an immediate wave of nausea pass through him. The past hours made him numb, his whole body tingled.

Harry jumped to his feet, pushed Hermione behind him and raised his wand. Gently giving the door a firm shove, it creaked open slowly.

He expected something to jump out at him, but nothing did.

Instead, all was silent.

There wasn't a sound apart from the heavy breathing.

Hermione put a hand on his shoulder, urging him to move forward.

They moved into the room quietly, looking around them.

His large office was neatly organized and beautifully decorated. A soft brown couch welcomed them into the room, begged to be sat on, but was ignored. The desk was massive; Hermione put her hands on it and inhaled the rich wood, momentarily losing herself in it.

"Over here," Harry said with a grin. "I cast an unbinding spell on it. It'll take a while, but they'll open up and we can see everything Greengrass has been up to."

Hermione turned around to see Harry poised over a large filing cabinet. It was open as far as Harry could open it and inside it lay a large stack of folders that radiated small bursts of light that Hermione recognized as the unbinding spell. He cast a Lumos charm over the dark corner and Hermione rolled her eyes before turning to flick on the lights.

Harry blinked in the new light and turned to give Hermione a look when he saw her face.

It looked pale as it fixated on something just beyond him… Harry craned his neck to see behind him, where Hermione was staring, and he dropped his wand.

On the wall, on the entire wall from one side to the other, was a huge chart. It reminded him of the Black Family Tree Sirius had shown him, but instead of charting a single family, as the Black tree had, this one seemed to contain everyone he could think of.

On one side was Hannah Abbott, and then Mafalda Hopkins to the left. The names seemed to be shimmering and Harry's eyes squinted as he tried to read the smaller names all around. Lines, red lines and blue lines, black lines, yellow lines, green lines, so many lines covered the wall. It nearly looked like Hermione's flat, except this was… this was elaborately done, painstakingly created rather than an evening's work.

Harry stood to trace some of the lines with his fingers and found himself drawn to the glittery golden lines. They dotted the huge chart, sometimes spread out and sometimes in clusters.

As he approached them, though, he realized that the lines were not connecting people, as he'd thought. Instead, they contained a number just beneath the person's name. His eyes followed the numbers, skipping over the names until he found his own.

24550

Just beside him, now tracing her own fingers across the chart, Hermione raised her wand.

There was a tug on her arm, and she felt the wand lead her to her own place on the chart. There was a brief set of lines attached to her name; there were simple grey lines that faded out of the paper entirely, presumably fading out to represent her muggle heritage. But there were also several thicker lines sprawling in all sorts of directions and connecting to so many random people. One led straight to Terry Boot, which made Hermione want to laugh at the coincidence of that. She couldn't think of a single reason why they'd ever be put side by side, let alone connected in a large chart of this magnitude.

A thought struck her then, as she lay her fingers over Terry's shimmering name, that perhaps the cords showed distant relatives.

"Maybe that's what the census was for… Maybe it was to create a full genealogy map of Wizarding Britain," she mumbled, half to herself.

"That wouldn't explain the werewolf and veela exclusion though…" Harry replied, hardly paying attention to her.

Hermione sighed.

"We don't even know if this is what we're here to look for."

"I'd reckon it is. See this?" Harry pointed towards the shimmering names of Draco Malfoy and a taut gold line tying him to Astoria Greengrass.

Hermione squinted at it and turned her head a bit to the side.

Lifting her wand again, she looked for Theo Nott's name. Immediately she was drawn to him and the taut gold line tying him straight across the chart to Slughorn's great-niece, Cassis Beaumont.

She looked back to Draco and followed the line back to Astoria Greengrass. From there she found Daphne, whose name glittered, with a line formed between her name and a name far across the chart that Hermione couldn't read from where she stood.

"What do you suppose the numbers mean?" Harry asked, following the same train of investigation.

"They look almost like…" she paused as she contemplated her words carefully. "They look almost like serial numbers. Like we're being recorded."

"What would they be recording, though? What's the point of all this?"

"Well," Hermione started, just as confused as Harry. "First we have to ask why werewolves and veela aren't here. That was our first clue, so let's follow that lead. What about them wouldn't fit into what we see here?"

Harry scrunched his nose and leaned back on Greengrass' desk.

"The easy answer is that they're different."

"Different how, though? Werewolves have a condition that alters them only once a month. And yes, veela have a fundamental difference in their genetic makeup, but that doesn't even inhibit their ability to reproduce with regular wizards or witches. So what if the child is half veela? So what if a werewolf has a kid that doesn't grow up to hate werewolves? So what if-"

"Wait, go back. What about reproduction?"

"Veela pass on their genes, just like ancestry. Like Fleur, remember?"

Harry nodded.

"But what if that's why they're excluded? What if it's because of reproduction?"

Hermione bit her lip.

"I suppose that could be a possibility… But why -"

There was a loud dinging noise and Hermione's hands flew up to her ears. She turned, white-faced to Harry, to see him not at all phased. He instead calmly turned around and returned to the filing cabinet where his unbinding spell seemed to have finally worked.

Hermione took a step towards him as he opened the folder and she paused to take a deep breath.

They were doing the right thing.

She just had to keep reminding herself of that.

"What do they say, Harry?"

"They're minutes from meetings. This one's almost minutes, actually, but I'm guessing there's more stuff throughout." Harry closed the folder and passed it off to her. "I can't make heads or tails of notes like that. Could you give it a go?"

Hermione took the folder to the desk and sat down in Lord Greengrass' chair while Harry set about opening a new folder.

Hermione scanned the papers, flipping over the introductions and after approving that the names on the papers were, in fact, the names she'd had written upon her walls, she dove head first into the folder.

Hermione rubbed her eyes, rereading the paragraph over again.

"It's a marriage law, Harry…" Hermione choked out. "It's a fucking marriage law. The numbers… they're serial numbers, alright. They're stamping us like cattle and forcing us together. We won't even have a choice in any of it, dear Gods, Harry, it's a fucking Marriage Law oh my god Harry, a marriage law..."

With her eyes glued to the page, she reread the paragraph again.

"Harry, are you listening to me? I said that -"

She looked up, wide-eyed, to find Harry already staring at her.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face white.

Hermione's brows knit together.

"Harry, did you hear me?"

He nodded slowly to her.

"What's wrong? What did you find?"

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

"Harry, what is it?

"No," he whispered urgently. Hermione stood and took a step towards him, still hunched on the floor over a folder whose contents were now spread out all across the floor. She hadn't even noticed him frantically putting the pieces together on his own.

"No," he said again, voice cracking. Not him. Not for her.

"What is it, Harry? What have you found?" Hermione asked when she was just over him, deft hands leaning down to pick up the papers he had in front of him. Harry's eyes flashed, and he ground one of his knees over the papers Hermione now tried to pry from under him.

"Harry," she continued, only to glance up and see the look of abject horror on his face.

"Harry, please," she pleaded with him, fear growing in her stomach, making her nauseous. "Is it a what, or a who that's made you this pale? Who are you paired with? Harry, please, what's going on?"

"We'll fight this, 'Mione, you won't have to be with this… this person."

Something fluttered in Hermione's stomach at his words. She gulped and felt a bit limp for a moment before regaining her composure.

"You're scaring me, Harry, who is it?"

Hermione tugged at the papers again, pulling them just enough to reveal her own name in golden letters, shimmering under her fingertips. Harry leaped down, tearing the paper where the other name would have been. Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes; as foolish as he was acting, he was acting out of fear and anger, and Hermione knew to trust his instincts by now.

Well, mostly trust his instincts. Right now she'd rather hex him to the ground so she could see what he's hiding.

"What, is it McLaggen?" Her voice quivered, "or, heaven forbid, it's not Malfoy is it? It can't be, he's engaged to Greengrass' daughter." She pursed her lips, trying to dismiss the feeling of absolute devastation that she felt would come any moment now.

"No, it's not either of them. Hermione, it's not fair. I won't tell you, not yet…"

"That decision is not up to you, Harry Potter."

Her hair sparked out of anger now, the fear had left her and now all she felt was fury towards the ministry, towards Kingsley and towards her very best friend who wouldn't tell her her own fate.

"I just - I need you to know that I'll get you out of this. You won't have to go through with it. I promise. I'll do everything I can, anything to protect you."

A tear dropped from her face and she realized that she had many more emotions crashing within her than she realized.

On top of fear, she felt devastated by the news that she wasn't going to be given the chance to choose her own life. Her own love. She thought of Ron and the guilt that she felt when something inside her felt a bit relieved at not having to break up with him.

Hermione chastised herself for the thought, it made no sense. She loved Ron. She still loves him, there's not loved to talk about. She loved him. She definitely loves him. That's why she's been putting up with all his bullshit. Because she loves him.

But that was making a mountain of a molehill when there was an actual mountain to deal with.

She didn't just feel betrayed by the very society she fought to protect, she was actually betrayed and backstabbed. She nearly died for what? To not get to experience love the way her parents had? She put her life on the line to campaign for change and now… Now she could understand why Kingsley said that people wouldn't like change when it happened to them.

She'd supported him, but never thought that she'd be one of the people protesting the very change she put her life on the line for.

How could he?

And now, she was going to be forced to marry someone?

"Who is it, Harry?"

"It's Dolohov, Hermione. It's him."

Hermione held resolute. She squared her shoulders and wiped the tears from her eyes as she processed the words he spoke, as she digested it all.

"I don't understand. How could- How?"

"I guess since he wasn't found guilty… But he hurt you, we have proof of that!"

"It won't matter. He's already been found innocent. Nobody can prove he did any of it willingly. Of course he'd be included. I just-I. I don't-"

Hermione curled over and threw up on the floor.

"Are… we should get out of here. Head back to your place, yeah?"

Hermione nodded, numb.

She could hardly feel her fingers as they set about scourgifying the vomit from the floor. She knelt down on her knees and examined the carpeted floors, poking fingers to where she'd just cleaned.

Harry jumped into action around her, folding papers back into the folders when Hermione held up an urgent hand.

"Wait," she said hoarsely, her voice just above a whisper.

Crawling towards the folders, Hermione touched her wand to them and whispered something beneath her breath, too quiet for Harry to hear. She closed her eyes over the folders and, if it was even possible at this point, Harry thought he saw even more colour drain from her skin.

She took a moment before closing the folder and handing back to Harry, moving on to the next one.

When the room was clean once again and free of any sign they'd been there, Hermione and Harry exited the office and closed the door quietly behind them.

The wards were much easier to put up than to take apart. Much faster, too, Hermione noticed, if she could notice time at all. All she had to do was remove her wedge, her rock, and the waterfall fell down around the office again. It might have taken an hour. It might have taken two. Maybe three, probably even it might have been a matter of minutes. But Hermione couldn't feel it, she didn't want to.

"I'll be right back," Harry said, "we've got to go. We're going to make a run for it, to the nearest floo. It won't get us exactly where we want to go, it's keyed to Diagon Alley. But I'll apparate us to your place from there, alright?"

She couldn't feel herself nod, didn't know she nodded at all. She just knew that he wasn't beside her anymore and it felt colder somehow.

Finally, Harry came back from his own office with the invisibility cloak and threw it over her without a word. He folded his arms around her, held her tight, before pulling her out into the open ministry where the early risers were starting to filter through.

None bothered them as he whisked through them, nobody noticed the strange shoulder rubs that they easily passed off as another person beside them. They didn't even bother looking enough to notice that there was nobody beside them at all.

But under the cloak, Hermione felt like she wasn't entirely real. She didn't know how she was going to walk normally, how she would go to sleep and not relive that one night when they broke into the ministry all those years ago. She didn't think she could even blink without seeing that man's face in the darkness.

Therapy helped her, it helped her so much with her PTSD and her ongoing trauma recovery, but so much of her healing was based around never having to face the fears she fought as a teenager.

And now… now the prospect of being forced to marry a monster she still woke up screaming about every once in a while… it felt like a cold ball of ice in her chest that seemed to radiate through her body until her fingertips felt like they were full of snow, frozen and close to cracking off.

Hermione blinked and she was standing on a busy street.

The cloak was gone and she could feel the breeze touching her lightly, softly, gently, and she wondered if she should start bottling up the memories of anything light, soft, gentle, for the future.

She blinked again and she was in her flat with Harry beside her. She rubbed her eyes with numb hands and aimed her wand and a large stack of clean papers.

Touching it gently, ink seeped from her wand onto the paper and started forming words, then sentences.

Harry watched as her fingers, now black, started to tremble. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back, as she took deep breaths.

When she finally collapsed into him, he moved her softly to her couch and set her down.

He brushed a few hairs from her face and smiled at its inability to be tamed. At Hermione's inability to be tamed.

He sat down on the floor in front of Hermione and put the papers in front of him. He flipped through the first few until he realized that she'd transferred the entire set of thick folders into cramped copies.

How had she held all of that within her?

He looked back to her and felt her skin.

It was cold to the touch. Harry frowned and cast a warming charm over her and watched as her shivering stopped.

Once he was sure she was comfortable, he turned back to the papers and pulled out a highlighter and began reading the minutes he'd passed off to her earlier.

He'd find a way to get her out of this.

He'd do everything he could to get her out of this.

Anything.

Anything at all.


	3. Chapter 3

When Harry wakes he is slumped against Hermione's couch with his legs sprawled out underneath her coffee table. He's disoriented at first until last night pounds back into his skull. He blinked his eyes under his lopsided glasses and squinted as everything becomes clearer in front of him.

He obviously hadn't slept well, he knew by the crick in his neck that something was amiss. But he couldn't even remember when he'd fallen asleep in the first place, let alone what way he let his head hang while he slept. He couldn't even be entirely sure he wasn't still sleeping, by the smell of eggs and bacon wafting through the room. Through all the confusion and disorientation, the last thing he expected was for eggs and bacon to be prepared in the kitchen.

And then there was the light streaming in from the window. It felt soft against his skin and warm, though everything in him told him that it should be cold and stormy outside. How dare the sun shine when it was all falling to pieces around him, when it was all-

Harry paused when he heard the distinctly familiar sound of pen against paper.

He turned around slowly and that's when he noticed the quiet music flowing through the flat. He couldn't quite make it out at first but after a minute of straining silently his ears started to function again and the soft hum of the steady sound bled through him until he felt almost… almost calm…

Harry blinked and groaning loudly.

Hermione glanced up at him then, thankful that the snoring must finally be over.

"Would you like any tea?" She asked, her voice calm and serene. She was wearing a comfortable pair of leggings and a light pink jumper that complimented her dark eyes and hair nicely.

He stared at her with his mouth open to speak, but he wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't sure what there was to say at all, he didn't understand what had changed between last night and this morning, how she could flip the switch between hysterics and harmony. It seemed oddly disconcerting to him, and Harry had to try his hardest to recount the past 24 hours. But if Harry remembered correctly, and he was absolutely sure that he did, Hermione should be wearing all black, as should he, and they should both be mourning together and the sky should be pouring, it should be hailing hard enough to break through Gringotts.

And cold, it should be cold too. So cold that they'd need a fire to warm them but even fire wouldn't be able to do it and they'd freeze happily so they wouldn't have to deal with…

So they wouldn't have to deal with the most unforgivable of curses he could think of. To condemn people to a fate completely out of their own hands. For Hermione to be dealt a fate worse than death. For Harry to- no. He couldn't think about that.

He looked up at Hermione to find a peaceful smile on her face. Strange...

"What're you doing?" He finally asked, breaking the silence with hoarse words.

"Took the day from work. I called the Auror's office too, told them you were down with some muggle illness infecting single men… You are officially cleared from duty until you've returned to perfect health."

Harry balked. Glancing past her to the blinking clock on the other side of the room, he realized that he was well late for his shift this morning.

"Hermione, what are you doing? Last night… Last night was awful. I don't expect you to go to work ever again if you didn't want to. Hell, I'd help you run away. I'd help you fake your own death if you wanted me to. Shit, 'Mione, I was expecting more of an, I don't know. I was expecting more of a reaction than," he waved dramatically at her, "this."

Hermione bristled at his words, her serenity slipping away and revealing a cold interior.

So that's where it was.

"There's no use getting all upset about the matches, Harry," she told him sternly as if warning him not to argue with her.

"Wha-"

"What I mean is that this law is flawed. It has to be. These matches," she gestured to the large stacks of papers organized by folder and subcategory within the folders. "These matches are rudimentary at best. It would be insane if these were final. Most of these are fine matches, but the rest? Besides, Kingsley wouldn't do this to us."

"What do you mean by that? He's obviously not got our best intentions at heart if this is what he's up to."

"Kingsley's smart, Harry. There's no way he could rightly dismiss this law. Not if it was proposed with such a backing. It would only turn his own Wizengamot against him, and then he won't be able to get anything done for the rest of his time as Minister."

Hermione bit her lip.

"No," she continued. "He'd have to back them publicly. But maybe he knew we'd get suspicious. Maybe he planted just enough clues to get us involved so we could figure out the whole plan. Maybe I was supposed to see that folder on his desk, maybe he knew that leaving werewolves and veela out of the census would mean I'd be in his office to see him and he scheduled my appointment right after that council meeting, that can't all have been just a series of coincidences… Maybe we're supposed to stop this from ever happening, Harry! Think of it! It makes complete sense!"

Harry regarded her softly, understanding dawning through his chest.

That's why she felt so… so OK this morning. Denial… it was a tricky thing to live with when it blinded you from seeing everything you don't want to see.

Harry picked up a stack of papers and picked through them idly.

"Have you found anything at all to support that theory?" He asked, and watched out of the corner of his eyes as her chin seemed to fall an inch.

"Any loopholes?" Her chin fell a few more.

"There has to be something, Harry…" She whispered.

He adjusted his glasses just as she raised her knees to her chest and hugged them close.

"There must be a way out of this." She said; something he heard her say in her sleep over and over until sleep took him as well. "This is barbaric, it's- It's just that there's no way people like the Malfoys would actually have to go along with this. They've already announced an engagement. Imagine forcing two powerful pureblood families to break off a union like that. It wouldn't happen. And if they won't have to break off their engagement for this, if they're allowed to get married, then that means there's a way out of this. That means we'll find a loophole, or at least some way to get out of it before it's too late, which looks to be… January 16th. We've got about two months and a bit to figure out a plan." Hermione's brows knit together, furrowing as she pondered over the papers in front of her.

"Does it say anything about it in the minutes that you looked at?"

Hermione shook her head as she rifled through the papers on her lap, looking for something in particular. Then she gestured to a large stack on the table in front of her.

"I haven't had the chance to go through that pile yet. Maybe you could take a look and see if you find anything. If you do, mark it and we'll come back when we've gone through everything…"

Harry pursed his lips and nodded, silently resigning himself to the thick folder in front of him.

"Also… I was meaning to ask… Did you try calling Ron at all last night? I tried him three times this morning but I think he's still mad at me from Tuesday. We could really use some help here, and considering he's just as involved in this as we are he should really be here."

"I tried every way I could last night, he isn't answering yet. But he'll get the messages, 'Mione, don't worry about him. I expect he'll be over when he can."

He watched as his friend put her face in her hands and took a deep shaking breath.

"Hey," he started at the first hint of her resolve starting to fall. He could hear her breath start to quicken beside him and he rushed to think of something to distract her from everything at hand, even if it was something small. Even if it only distracted her for a moment.

"Do I smell eggs and bacon?" He offered. "I'm absolutely famished."

Hermione jumped at the chance to do something other than pour over hundreds of pages of mind-numbing conversation. Most of the minutes were nothing but petty chatter, nothing useful. Maybe some discussion here and there about how to avoid being prosecuted by the public upon revelation, but there was hardly anything of use. Nothing useful. Nothing Useful. There wasn't anything useful, dear Gods what if they couldn't use any of what they'd broken into the ministry to find…

Hermione took a deep breath as she took the eggs and bacon from their stasis charm and inhaled the smells. Maybe Harry would find something in his folder after all. He said he'd do everything he could, and last time he did everything he could he sacrificed himself for all of them.

Hermione wouldn't let him give up everything for her, not by a long shot, but she trusted in his ability to dedicate himself to a task and succeed.

She would accept his time.

She would accept his help.

She would accept his kindness.

But that's all she could do.

Harry could hardly focus on the words in front of his eyes anymore. It was past lunchtime and his stomach grumbled. They'd barely eaten anything since earlier and while Harry was starting to feel the void in his stomach, every time he turned around to ask Hermione if she wanted to order in food, she held a finger up to silence him.

She was so drawn in, obsessed, with her reading that she could hardly process anything else.

It didn't matter how many pages were marked with brightly coloured sticky notes with circled and highlighted portions to look back to. It didn't matter that Hermione's walls were looking more and more complicated as she started pinning up known matches from the sheets she occasionally went through as a form of a "break" from her "real work."

There was a firm knock on the door and Harry jumped at the noise. He turned to Hermione, but she barely registered the sound of the knocking.

It was loud, intentional. It had a pattern to it, almost like a song.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and stood to answer.

When Ginny walked through, she blinked at the mess of the room and scrunched her nose.

"Hey, Gin," he greeted her as he helped her take a large group of spread out papers.

She paused in the middle of the room and held a hand to her head.

"Um… is all this for the-?" She asked, her voice a bit faint.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, and don't worry. We're trying to figure out a way to stop the law from being passed, but-"

"Who am I paired with?" she interrupted, justifiably disoriented.

Harry readjusted his glasses and looked at her, really looked at her as more than a face with red hair. It hurt to look at her as more, to take down the blurry glass wall he put in front of her whenever he even just thought of her. She was beautiful… she IS beautiful. Her smile, her freckles, her eyes, her lips…

Harry blinked and they were all there. All except for the smile, which was turned into a grimace as she shivered despite the heat in the flat. He could tell she'd been crying, that she was scared.

"Er... You've been paired with Oliver Wood." He looked down.

"Oliver Wood? As in… Quidditch-Captain-Oliver from school?" She widened her eyes and then pursed her lips contemplatively. She could almost smile just from the relief of it all. "I guess that's not so bad… I was expecting a lot worse when you rang mum and dad. They've been crying ever since…"

Ginny looked past Harry to Hermione, and then back to him.

He shook his head and looked down.

"Have you heard from Ron? This is a bit urgent…"

Ginny nodded. "Yeah, he called me while he was on his way out of the ministry the other day. Said that him and," she flicked her eyes up towards Hermione and back, "had a bit of a disagreement and he needed to get some space. I'm not sure when he's supposed to be back, but it wasn't made out to be a particularly long mission. Has he not called any of you back since you found out?"

Harry shook his head, and Ginny frowned. It wasn't like him to not respond to the Auror's office.

"He's being a right pain in the arse, Gin. Thanks for coming over so quickly, I know you were busy."

"Not busy enough, but no worries. Is there anything I can do?"

Harry laughed a bit, not actually, and looked around.

"I'll let you take a look around and ask any questions. It's a lot to deal with, and it looks a lot more daunting than it actually is, I promise. We're marking things off what we want to return to with these sticky papers,"

"I remember you showing me those a couple years ago. Really handy, those are," Ginny added, pulling a few from Hermione's pad and unpeeling them. Harry winced.

"Yeah, super handy. Anyways, we have a few things to look back to. We've still got a lot of ground to cover, but we figured it would be better to involve all of you rather than leave you to the sharks."

Ginny nodded. "Thanks again, Harry. I know this is all a bit weird, but I'm really happy you called me."

Harry smiled again, a small smile that wasn't really a smile at all, and Ginny knew that it wasn't really a smile but a face he made when he tried to look different than he felt.

"Alright," she said, uncomfortably rubbing her hands together. "Put me to work! Can I start with making anything for lunch? Any tea?"

Harry smiled for real this time, a wide grin.

"Yes. Absolutely. Anything sounds amazing, I'm starving."

Harry bolted upright in his chair, gasping. Hermione jumped at the noise, startled, and Ginny came running from Hermione's room, where she'd taken to setting up an expansive list of all the pairings.

"Harry, what is it?" Hermione asked as she put a hand on his shoulder.

"It says here that if there is a legitimate reason for not being able to fulfill his/her required duty, an appeal must be made within one week of the law being announced."

"That's perfect! We have legitimate reasons to not be paired, Dolohov is a monster who nearly murdered me and you don't even know your match!" Hermione referenced the woman Ginny had discovered Harry to be paired with. Her name was Aline and she was French. Never even went to Hogwarts, from what any of them could figure out. She was a good deal older than them, probably 7 years older.

"I knew we had to have been working ourselves up over nothing," she continued. "Kingsley wouldn't let us be handed over into a binding marriage without giving us any free will."

Hermione breathed out excitedly as if she were letting all the stress of the ordeal fall right through her. She took the paper from Harry to reread it and wove it between her fingers.

She frowned slightly, then, as she read through the bit Harry read aloud.

"What is it?" He asked warily, stepping aside to let Ginny stand to pass him. She looked down at him, silently enquiring about tea again. He shook his head with a taut smile.

"Nothing, nothing, sorry- but how did we not find this sooner? I'm only just now reading what the DMLE counts as a valid reason to be excluded from this process…"

Harry shrugged. "And? What counts?"

Hermione looked up, her face soft and gentle despite the obvious pain she felt.

"Well, first of all, the pairings list wouldn't be released until a week after all the appeals have been made. I assume this is some attempt to save the Ministry from facing too much backlash over their matches, but we already know our pairs so that isn't a problem for us. Second of all, any prior engagements that have been made public will likely be permitted, since those are so important to silly Pureblood families and over half the wizards on this council are Pureblood. That explains all the engagements recently..."

"I'll admit it's not ideal but I guess if it's a last resort, announcing a public engagement wouldn't be too far fetched, would it? It isn't like we'd have to stay engaged, right?" He looked to the kitchen before lowering his voice and moving closer to Hermione. "And Ginny and I already almost, well her match isn't all that bad. But yours… Even if you and I were to… well...shite, where the hell is Ron, anyway? He'd be pretty damn useful in this whole ordeal."

Hermione simply shook her head, a sad smile on her lips. She paused for a moment before asking, hesitantly, about the date of this meeting. Harry looked down at his pile of papers and sifted through them before pulling one out. "About a fortnight ago. Why?"

She closed her eyes.

"Even if you and I were to all of a sudden decide we were madly in love, the process of announcing an engagement would take too long. Malfoy and Daphne's sister must have been engaged for nearly half a year before it was made official in the Daily Prophet. There are protocols for this kind of thing. I suspect that maybe months ago when they made this decision, the important men in this room went home and immediately informed their families of this impending law and started arranging the engagements. It's no use, Harry. But thank you. For offering, I mean."

"There has to be something else in there, something that will get you out of this mess."

"The only other valid excuse listed in here is medical. If there are any outstanding medical reasons to not marry, we'd have only another couple months to acquire it."

The look of determination Harry had become so used to during school didn't even shadow her face. Only the look of cold defeat showed on her now brittle looking features. He moved to wrap his arms around her, just in time for a silent tremor to shake her.

When Ginny returned with a new tray of tea, she returned to Harry holding Hermione's head on his lap, petting her hair and occasionally wiping away a tear that had managed to free itself of her guarded demeanor.

Ginny opened the door to the Burrow with her shoulders hung low. It had been a long day, mostly uninteresting and quiet. She was never a fan of absolute silence, but she found she much preferred it to the playlist Hermione had of the same ten songs on repeat.

She took a breath and entered the home and was immediately met with the thunderous noise of her mother, father, brothers, and Fleurès annoying accent as they crowded around her, all asking questions and trying to ask them louder than the rest.

"Stop it!" She yelled, directing them all to the living room.

"Come on, Gin, this is a big deal. Tell us what's going on," George asked, or rather, George yelled.

"Who are you paired with, dear?" Molly asked, then, tears still wet on her cheeks when the group finally got her sitting down.

Ginny could nearly smile again.

"Oliver Wood, thank Circe."

"Oi, how did you get paired with him?" George yelled again.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"The ministry doesn't want a complete upset. Most of the pairings I was able to find have been well matched, actually."

She watched the confusion on their faces.

"What do you mean by zat?" Fleur questioned, anxiously thinking of her younger sister Gabrielle, who had just recently moved to Scotland and had taken part in the census.

"A lot of the matches make sense. None of you even have to worry, actually. None of you are poorly matched, per se. Only George and I know our matches in person, but I was looking through the census collections at the other girls and they seem to be good people on paper. But as I said, I don't think they're all that bad for the most part. Like Georgie-"

"So there's no way to stop the law at all?" Bill asked. "No loopholes?"

Ginny shook her head just as Percy raised his voice to confidently state that "the minister is a brilliant man and wouldn't let any loopholes fall through in such a huge law," to which George smacked him over the head.

"Shut up, I'm trying to hear my fiance's name! So what about me, Gin? Who will I be marrying?" George asked hopefully.

Ginny watched them all and realized that only Molly was still crying.

"Lucky boy that you are, now you've got the perfect opportunity to propose to Roxanne before you ever even have to ask her out for a first date." Ginny laughed as she spoke when George's jaw dropped.

"You're pulling my leg, aren't you?" He asked, excitement pumping through him.

"You're marrying Roxanne!" She squealed, and she felt like she were a child again and all was well.

"How on Earth did George get her?" Percy scoffed. "Has the ministry been watching him pine away after all this time?"

"Like I told you. The ministry probably doesn't want a big upset. I'd imagine that they'll want to keep as many of their 'war heroes' and public figures happy with their matches, just to avoid the whole public dissension part of it all."

"So the matches aren't bad then?"

Ginny grimaced.

"A couple of them are bad, but-'"

"But that doesn't mean that we'll be anywhere near the rough ones, right Molly? You can breathe, dear. You can calm down."

Ginny looked down. She didn't know how to tell her mother, her already panicked mother, that the girl she considers another daughter is paired to the man that is commonly known to have killed her two brothers during the first war against Voldemort.

Molly shook her head at Arthur, though.

"No, it's not okay. I can't calm down because something is wrong here. Ginny, dear, what's wrong? What is it?"

Ginny sniffled and covered her face with her arm to wipe away the tears as subtly as she could. She didn't want them to see her like this. Especially not when the last time she'd cried to them was about the breakup, and she didn't want them to think that she was jealous of Harry's match, or that it was anything to do with Harry at all. She didn't even want to think about Harry in the first place or the thought of him marrying anybody but herself. For all her relief at having being paired with Oliver Wood, she still hardly knew him. She didn't know the man, and it felt like a pit in her stomach to be paired with someone she knew and someone she could see herself being with. But Harry didn't know his match at all. And Hermione…

"Ginny?" Charlie asked, gently pulling her sleeve.

She sniffed again and held her head up.

"It's, uh. Huh. Well… It's Hermione…"

Ginny cried as she spoke. She told them about Dolohov, and she told them about Harry's face when he talked about it. She told them about how she had to leave from the room and cast a silencing charm in the bathroom so she could cry and throw up and mourn the future of her best friend, of her almost-sister-in-law.

And Molly cried for her children, for the children she felt were hers and for the children she would bring into the family though some won't be coming willingly or happily. She cried for the grandchildren who would grow up with parents who weren't in love.

And Ron… Ron wouldn't get to marry the girl he'd been in love with for so long…

It's true, Molly thought, that they bickered an awful lot. But they were like an old married couple. Their arguments were about such trivial things, such insanely unimportant things like laundry and tardiness and organization. She knew they enjoyed one another's presence, she knew they enjoyed one another's personalities. It was only the small stuff that got to them, and those were easy enough to overcome.

Molly shook her head.

It wasn't fair that they'd never get to learn how to overcome their problems.

And what did Fred even die for if this is what was going to happen to them all? This wasnèt the change he was fighting for...

And as much as Molly didn't want to admit it to anybody in the family, she stayed up that night staring at the fire knitting nothing in particular and wondered if Hermione would be happier dead than bound to a monster like Dolohov.

She didn't want to think of the young girl that way. She was still so young with so much life ahead of her.

But it was Dolohov, and Molly knew that if she ever woke up to the news that Hermione had taken her own life, she would much prefer it to the news that she'd been murdered.

And when she was climbing the stairs to her bedroom she realized that from now until the rest of her life, she would never be surprised to hear that the young toothy girl that stayed over for summers and some holidays had died.

And she fell asleep terrified and crying that she might someday soon be burying such a sweet girl…

So sweet, so loving, she fit so well into the family and Arthur woke up to her shaking and wrapped his arms around her and they both cried together for their family.

For their children.

For their futures.

And they woke up with her pressed up against him and she held him close to her and counted every blessing she ever had that she got to choose Arthur. She would still choose him, just like she knew Ron and Hermione would choose each other, and then she was crying again.

But she had to get up, she could hear her children congregating in the kitchen.

They were all worn out and tired from yesterday - last night wasn't easy for any of them and now it felt like every move they made or saw was robotic and not even their own. They were going through the motions, and it was painfully obvious to each of them that seemed to be allowing themselves to move in such a way.

Percy sat stiffly at the table with his plate of eggs that had long since gone cold

George stood against the wall and was leaning against it uncomfortably.

Arthur patted Bill on the shoulders and sat down beside Percy and set his forearms down on the wooden table. It creaked slightly, just enough to let them know that one of the legs was too short or another was too long. George shifted on his feet as the table creaked again.

Moll sat down on the other end of the table and it did it again.

"Can somebody please just fix that already?" George nearly yelled, irritated. "All it needs is a little fixing. Just put a bloody nub on the end or something to keep it from-"

George shut his mouth.

Arthur looked up to his son in confusion.

"George, I hardly think that now is the-"

"Stop talking for a moment," George blurted out.

"Are you alright?" Ginny took a step closer to him and put a hand on his arm.

"I just- I… I was wondering… if by the ministry's standards, would pregnancy count as a valid medical excuse?"

Molly's eyes narrowed. Percy looked up at him and opened his mouth, but said nothing. It was silent for all but a few seconds, but it felt like much longer. Ginny couldn't quite be sure if time was even functioning in a linear pattern anymore by the silence and slowness of it all. But Molly didn't hesitate. She jumped to the counter and called Errol through the window.

"Mum?" Ginny asked, startled by her mother's reaction.

Molly looked back to her daughter with a manic look on her face.

"We need to get Ron back here now! We can stop this!" She squealed excitedly.

The bird came and when the letter was attached and sent out Ginny still couldn't be sure what had happened. It was all too fast, too hurried, too rushed. She felt like she just couldn't catch up with the world around her. It was moving too quickly under her feet and she was somehow stuck just a few seconds behind everyone else, and she knew that others had it worse and others were farther behind, but she wasn't sure how to process things anymore and it scared her.

So she did the only thing she knew was definitely the right thought in her head.

She stood straight and left the door open behind her and despite the cold, she walked out wearing only her bathrobe, she didn't even bother with sippers, and she went outside into the freshly fallen snow and apparated straight to the steps of Grimmauld place. She breathed a sigh of relief when the door swung open for her. At least she was still keyed into the wards.

She entered at walked around.

"Harry?" She called.

But there was no answer, so she called again.

She scrunched her nose and climbed the stairs. The bedroom was empty, she noticed when she got to the top. The bed was made, unslept in. She stood in his room, in this familiar room and stared at the bed she used to laugh in, that she used to wake up in, that she used to feel heaven in.

And it's still empty no matter how many times she blinks.

She walks toward it and touches it lightly with her fingers. She can still smell him here, she noticed.

And then she thought of Oliver, and if he was standing in another girl's bedroom right now or if he were in another girl's bed. If he had a girlfriend, or if he had a boyfriend, and if he would hate her for ruining what they had. She wondered if he would ever love her if she wasn't sure she could ever love him.

She sighed and stepped away from the bed, from the bedroom, from the stairs, from the whole house and apparated again to the loud metal stairs that led up to Hermione's flat.

She let herself in without knocking and when she entered she paused in the living room to see Harry and Hermione sleeping on the couch just as she'd left them yesterday.

They'd moved just a bit to get more comfortable but Harry was sitting back on her couch with the fire lit next to them to keep them warm and Hermione was laid down with her head on his lap and his fingers in her hair and a hand on her waist and her hands entwined while she slept with her face towards his stomach it seemed to Ginny too much of an intimate scene for her to be intruding wearing a bathrobe and bare feet. Much too intimate for her to be there in the first place regardless of how she dressed, no matter how many times she'd worn exactly what she wore now when she'd been in Hermione's position and waking up next to him.

So she picked up the dog-eared page with the circled medical section and left a bright pink sticky paper next to it.

And she left just the same way as she came; silent and numb.

And Harry woke up the same way.

He woke slowly to the silence and his legs were numb from Hermione's head on his lap and he welcomed all of it because it meant that she was with him still. She wasn't lost yet.

He moved his left hand from her hair and his right from her waist and she stirred at the absence and groaned.

The light was far too light and the heat seemed to be far too much now.

She pushed herself from his lap and stretched.

Harry shuffled his hand through his hair and leaned forward to put his glasses onto the coffee table after wearing them all night, which was when the brand new bright pink sticky note grabbed his attention.

Hermione was a firm enforcer of using up every colour before moving on to the next, and Harry very specifically remembered her to still be using the yellow stickies. He frowned and pulled the paper over.

"Did you do that?" Hermione asked, leaning over him to try to get a look at the scrawling that was far too neat to be his and far too large to be her own.

"Oh," Harry said, his face quickly turning red under his glasses as he read the note completely.

"Oh," Hermione echoed, her face paling in opposition.

They sat in silence for a few minutes while working it out in their heads.

"Should-" Harry started, only to be interrupted by Hermione starting to speak at the same time.

"I know it's- I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

"No, go ahead, you first," Harry offered, immediately thankful for the interruption.

"I was just going to say that this is a bit more intense than just a public engagement. A lot more intense actually," she scoffed. "In fact a public engagement announcement seems quite tame compared to… to this."

"Tell me about it." Harry nodded, distracted until he caught Hermione looking at him expectantly. "Oh right. I was just going to ask if - if you wanted me to get Ron called back from his assignment?"


	4. Chapter 4

It had been a week since they broke into Lord Greengrass' office. One week since they found out about the Marriage Law. One week since they'd both been to work or even ventured outside their homes. One week since Hermione slept the night alone - there was usually someone with her now. Molly's fears were unanimously echoed by each Weasley and when Ginny approached Harry with their concerns, he admitted that he was scared as well. He knew she was strong, stronger than himself, even. But he'd noticed a change in her that disturbed him. Long gone was the logical Hermione who could analyze anything; now she sat and read the same pages 50 times without making any progress.

She kept seeing the words in front of her but she couldn't make them sit still in their sentences. They didn't make any sense anymore. How could these words, these perfectly rational words that under any other circumstance could sound like music to her ears, come together to form these sentences, these thoughts? And how could these words, these sentences, these thoughts have passed through Kingsley's mind and made sense? And then how could all of these people, these perfectly rational people who were her superiors in almost every way except for their apparent morals and their blood, have looked at their children and decided that they would create a law forcing them into relationships that they'd never consent to?

There's a reason, Hermione thought, that any appeals made would have to be made before the matches were released. It's because they had to know that most of the people being subjected to the law would never choose the person they've been paired with. There's a reason why they got their own kids out of the law.

It's unfair, it's cruel and it's barbaric and disgusting and it froze her mind and she wanted to kick and scream and walk into the ministry and kill every one of them but she couldn't do anything, she couldn't move or think or cry or kick or scream or walk into the ministry and kill them, she wished she could kick and scream and kill but her body was exhausted from sleepless nights of laying there and wondering which countries she could run away to. But then she remembered that she wouldn't be able to help the other people who might suffer… who would be better off escaping with her...

So she sat and she stared at the fire and contemplated every way she could keep the law from being sworn in. She wished she had the power, the strength, to stride into Kingsley's office and hold a dagger to his throat, hold a dagger because she was proud to be a muggleborn and knew how much fear a knife could inflict and she wanted Kingsley to feel her kind of fear, her kind of pain. She wanted him to beg her to let him go so he could shut the whole thing down.

She wanted to find Malfoy and hurl him against a wrought-iron fence and watch it push through his chest and she'd fucking cry because rational people, good people, feel real emotion when they sentence another person to death, to pain, to fear and as much as she hated it, Malfoy was real and she was real and she'd kill him and she'd cry and then she'd be killed and… and nothing good will have come from her doing it, would it? It would be just as bad as running away. It's really just a different place to run to, after all.

And that didn't make her feel any better. It didn't make her feel good, fine, okay, anything on the spectrum of relief at escaping Dolohov.

"Harry," she spoke louder than she'd intended and she found the sound resonating in her ears. "Do you remember that job you were telling me about a few weeks ago?"

She shuddered at the chill that bit at her spine and suddenly prayed that he'd been too wrapped up in his reading to have heard her. It was a stupid thought…

But he heard her and looked up inquisitively.

"From the basement division?" He squinted at her, having long ago removed his glasses so he could try to get some rest before getting up to make them dinner.

Hermione hummed in affirmation, unclear to anybody but Harry and Ron.

"Yeah, what about it?" He asked, watching her features carefully.

"Who did you say was retiring?"

"Mirthwood, thank God. Should have left ages ago but he's been there so long that nobody had the balls to tell him to bugger off. Not even Lord Greengrass tried… again, what about it?"

"You said that he's kind of like a muggle divorce lawyer?"

Harry gave a lopsided frown. "Kind of, but not exactly. He's pretty much in charge of marital law in the DMLE. It's pretty boring down in there, but I expect it'll get pretty hectic when-"

Harry closed his eyes.

Of course.

"Hermione… if this law is going to be passed, there's no way they're going to let you orchestrate divorces for everybody who isn't happy with their match."

"But marital law includes protecting spouses! Let's say that Ginny and Oliver get married and he knocks her around. They'd been matched and something's awry between them. Ginny should be able to seek help from the ministry, shouldn't she? There's no way they can reasonably justify ignoring abuse in relationships, there's no way that looks good. They'll start losing support and who knows what might happen then? Another war, perhaps? An uprising? A mutiny?"

"You can't save everybody…" He said slowly, trying to force every word into her brain by staring her down.

"But maybe I can save a few. If I can help at least one person get through this, if I can protect them, why shouldn't I try?"

Harry threw his papers on the ground in exasperation. "Because you're the one that needs to be protected, 'Mione! I'm supposed to be protecting YOU, not letting you go out and take on every trauma and every sadness that exists out the-"

"I don't need to be protected, Mr. Auror, I am fully capable of-"

"No! You're not!"

"Do not interrupt me!"

Harry closed his mouth and tried not to let himself fall victim to their pent up aggression. Heated words were heated words, they'd both learned the price of voicing them and regretting them later.

"Harry…" she started, putting a hand on her arm, just over her scar. "I've been through worse. There's nothing Dolohov can do to me that I can't survive."

"But-"

"But nothing. Other people haven't been through this before. I can help them, Harry. We haven't found a single thing, not a single thread we can pull to unravel this."

"How do they expect to get us all to go through with this though? Like you said, a riot could start. If we fight then-then… we can fight this like we did back when Voldemort..."

Hermione looked down.

"The very fact that we haven't found any hint of how they'll be enforcing this is proof enough that there was another folder in Greengrass' office that we missed. You know what that means, don't you?" She glanced up at Harry and watched as his eyelids dropped and his head tilted back. He sat in the sun and she watched as it shone golden through his hair and made him look like an angel.

"If there's another folder then there's no way they've overlooked anything."

Hermione nodded.

"The very least we can do is figure out a way to protect the people subjected to it." She sat still for a moment and watched as little bits of dust drifted through the air like little suns. She followed one as it swirled through the air and landed on the floor, and then it was gone… It was beautiful for a moment and then, in an instant, it was just plain dust and not a sun at all.

"How will you get it? Mirthwood isn't retired yet, and I doubt Greengrass will just hand you the job."

"Why not? Nobody wants to work in that basement, it's grimy and… and dusty. It's so dusty down there…" Hermione thought of the floating golden dust flowing from one room to the other. She watched them carefully as they danced and narrowed her eyes when a few fell from rotation, dropped, and slipped towards the floor. And then they were just like the others - dirt, something needing to be cleaned. Like her, once upon a time. She was still a sun, still a star… but stars died sometimes and became nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all, nothing. Nothing but matter that expanded and pulsed and she didn't care for astronomy at all, it was all too vague and unreliable, but she knew from studying muggle science books that everything she touched was because a star died once upon a time.

Hermione looked down at her hands and stretched them, curled them, felt them and knew that she had made up her mind. She would protect them. She would protect all of them.

Harry squinted again and wished he'd put his glasses anywhere nearer to him earlier.

"Considering the whole intent of this law, wouldn't you assume they'll be hiring someone they can trust to uphold their decisions?" Harry asked, snapping Hermione from her reverie.

Hermione looked up at him. "Mirthwood doesn't know anything, won't know not to hire me. I have the credentials, the recommendations. I fought in the bloody war that saved his life. If he hires me, if Kingsley signs off on it, then the job is mine and I can at least do something about all of this."

Harry shook his head as if he were stuck in a dream. Or rather, stuck in a nightmare.

"If Kingsley signs off on it? Hermione, he's part of the problem now. Not part of the solution. We can't trust him anymore."

"I still don't think he would willingly sentence us to this kind of future… it's insane. Kings isn't insane," Hermione countered. "Besides. We need to see him anyway."

Harry rolled his eyes. "That's MY meeting with him. You're not invited."

"Why not."

"Because I don't trust you not to stroll in there and tell Kingsley everything we know and blow our entire position on this."

"You know I won't do that-"

"You're hell-bent for leather that he's been trying to send you secret messages," Harry narrowed his eyes at her and shrugged. Sure, she was brilliant. Sure, she was the best goddamn witch, wizard, whatever you want to call it, she was the best he'd ever met. But she also thought too well of people sometimes.

Namely, she thought too well of a particular person at this particular moment and it wasn't a reliable witch before him at this point.

But he heard a crackle, a pop, a sizzling and before him suddenly sat a livewire. He ducked his head down and ran his hands through his hair.

"I won't allow this.," she said plainly. "If you're going to see him, so am I."

Harry looked up to argue again but the look on her face made him shudder.

There she was, he sighed.

As much as he didn't want her to go, she had hope again. She had fight. She had drive.

He wouldn't be the one to step on it now. Not while he still believed there was hope to be had and a fight still to fight.

And she was back, maybe.

And he'd do anything for her to stay back.

"Minister," Harry greeted Kingsley in his office with a smile. He shook his hand and moved swiftly and if anybody were to see the three of them together, they would see two men behaving very normally and one woman acting a bit jumpier than usual.

Despite her insistence on accompanying him and being capable of doing so, she found that was still rather exhausted. She'd taken a potion to help her sleep and in the morning, when she was still tired and groggy, Harry had rolled his eyes and tossed her a Pepper Up potion from his duffel bag.

"Harry, Hermione, what a pleasure to see you both!" Kingsley laughed as he gestured to the chairs in front of his desk while he walked around to sit in his. "I'll be honest, I was very surprised when I saw we had a meeting today. So says the gossip in this ministry, you both have been quite ill after catching a muggle sickness that targets single men."

Kingsley turned to stare at Hermione, and she couldn't be sure if the twinkle in his eyes was that of suspicion or gest.

"I was sick, Kings," Hermione flushed. "Harry was just trying to help."

Harry balked. That was not their story. He glanced over to her, and it only took meeting her eyes for a fraction of a second to understand her intentions. Hermione always did like to plan ahead, loved good foreshadowing in all of her books, and Harry had to admit that planting the seed now would make it easier for her later.

Kingsley leaned over his desk and offered her a hand. She stared at it for a while before slipping her small hand into his.

"Then why a muggle illness targeting single men? That seems to be a bit far fetched, a bit dramatic, doesn't it?"

Harry laughed and pulled it from deep down in his chest. It didn't matter that he didn't feel like laughing, he just wanted to draw the attention to himself in the moment. Away from his flustered friend.

"Don't push her Kings, she's been so embarrassed about everything already. Must be the hormones, right?" Harry smiled as he spoke, trying to maintain as much eye contact as he could without seeming uncomfortable or odd. But then he wondered how much looked normal and he blinked and looked around a few times.

Kingsley looked between them and frowned a bit, but apparently decided not to comment.

"So what are we talking about today? Must be important if the DMLE had you slipped in so urgently."

Harry shifted in his chair.

"Well," he started. "To be short, Ron's missing."

Kingsley cocked his head a bit.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He left on an assignment last week and nobody's heard from him since."

Kingsley leaned back in his chair.

"Harry already sent out our available auror department to go look for him, but nobody's been able to find him yet. They've gone everywhere he was supposed to be, everywhere he could possibly get lost, but he's not there." Hermione interjected, still looking flushed. Her voice wavered a bit, wobbled just slightly. "I-we, I mean… Would you be able to have the International Magical Office of Law investigate? Or at least have them contact the auror departments we have confirmation he's been in? It's just, it's really urgent that we find him. It's really urgent that he comes home."

Hermione looked down to her hands and twiddled with her thumbs to keep from meeting Kingsley's eyes directly.

Harry watched as Kingsley regarded her carefully, speculatively. He watched with intensity at her hands, and where they rested just beside…

"Hermione... " Kingsley started, his eyes getting red and Harry's heart started to beat faster. "I know you must be very worried about Ronald. Of course, I'll arrange for him to be found and brought home as soon as humanly possible."

He let go of his breath and let his head fall forward just a smidge.

"Thank you," she responded quietly before taking a breath.

"I'll send a message down to the DIMC at once." Kingsley smiled and then turned his gaze from her. "Harry, would you be able to run the message down to them for me? You'll be needed there to give details regarding his mission and disappearance, but that's all old hat. You've done this plenty of times."

Harry nodded tightly as the minister scribbled down a message for the DIMC.

"Yes, of course, Kings. Thanks for helping out so quickly." Harry smiled at him and stood when the note was finished and signed and shook Kingsley's hand.

Hermione stood to follow but stopped when Kingsley raised his hand. "Hermione, stay a bit, would you? I have some follow-up questions about our meeting last week."

"Oh," she started, "I'm not sure if there's time for-"

"Nonsense. It'll only be a moment. Please," he said, gesturing back to her chair. "Sit."

Harry widened his eyes at her, trying to get her to protest. But she didn't, and Harry knew immediately what she intended to do.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but Kingsley lifted a finger and the note started to squirm in his hands and snapped to bite him. He nearly dropped it in surprise, and when he looked up he found himself solidly planted outside Kingsley's office and he frowned, having no recollection of moving himself.

The note squirmed again and Harry took a deep breath and prayed that Hermione protected both of them by not blowing their cover.

And he walked down the hallways, nearly ran just so he could run back and meet her when she left her meeting and it was an unnervingly slower process than he truly wanted it to be. He growled in frustration every time the crowd around him stalled and slowed him down on his way and then he steadied himself not to throw things when he was held in a queue to even enter to DIMC and then he was asked to pull a number and wait his turn and he couldn't stop grinding his teeth and tapping his foot against the cold floors before he was finally called up and he was breathless and then he was pointed down the hall and then another hall and another room, "our expertise is dedicated to different matters here," and he saw a wastebasket in the corner in the corner of the room he now sat in, waited in, and tapped his foot again and stared at the wastebasket and tried to see if he could tip it over with his mind.

Harry took a deep breath and turned from the wastebasket to the long counter that separated the employees from the disgruntled people by a heavy ward that they sat comfortably behind. He could see beyond it two women chatting with each other. They laughed and despite the obviously crowded waiting room, only one person manned the entire desk.

"Excuse me," he spoke up, getting the attention of the tall blonde woman behind the counter. "I've got an urgent message from the minister that really ought to be dealt with."

She looked up at him and blinked lazily.

"It's always urgent," she said in a French accent. "You'll have to wait your turn just like everybody else."

Harry stood and marched over to the counter and held the squirming note up.

"I keep getting directed to sit and wait, but there's a missing auror and the minister has given express orders to-"

"I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but many of the people in the waiting room are here on express orders from their own ministries. Do you consider your minister to be more important than any other?"

Harry leaned on the counter and rubbed his face with his hands before pushing himself back up.

"Listen, I am the Junior Chief of the Auror division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and this is now an investigation. I'm going to have to insist you let me through or face the consequences of obstructing justice. What's your name," he asked, taking out a pad of paper and a pen. "This is no way to treat a missing person investigation."

The woman rolled her eyes. "My name is Charpentrier. Aline Charpentrier."

Harry dropped the pen.

"Go ahead," she continued and leaned back in her chair casually. "Convict me of doing my job. You say I am obstructing justice. But I could argue that you are interfering with International Magical Cooperation. Then you will be under investigation, and then you'll have to come back and take another number and you'll have to wait much longer to find your missing comrade."

But Harry couldn't quite focus on her words. Instead he watched as her mouth moved and he scrunched his nose and stared at her as she spoke as if she cared about nothing at all.

"My suggestion?" She continued. "Sit back down and wait your turn like everybody else. You'll get what you want much faster, and without nearly so much hassle."

Harry stepped back, not acknowedging her suggestion and vaguely heard someone who must have been standing behind him move to the front of the line.

"Excuse me," the man asked angrily. "I really don't have time to be waiting. I have very important business with the German Ministry and it needs to be taken care of at once."

"It's always important," Aline responded to him in the same tone she'd answered Harry in. "You'll have to wait your turn just like everybody else."


	5. Chapter 5

"Kings!" Hermione protested as Harry suddenly stood somewhere beyond the doors. She hadn't even seen him move, but he was gone and she hadn't even blinked.

"A new security measure," he explained without looking at her. "Brand new as of last week."

He looked up to her and his eyes twinkled. Hermione shivered, remembering how Dumbledore's eyes did just the same thing when he was trying to get his way.

"What about Harry just then made you consider him a security threat?" She asked through gritted teeth.

Kingsley looked at her inquisitively, then, and laughed. "Nothing, of course. I've just been so excited to use it. It's a wonderful bit of magic, don't you agree?"

Hermione shook her head. "I haven't had the chance to examine it. But I find it extremely rude to dismiss him while he was still speaking to -"

Kingsley waved her off with a hand and she closed her mouth.

"You're not as good at lying as you used to be, Hermione," he said quietly, lifting his arms onto the table and staring at her pointedly.

Hermione straightened under his gaze and felt the pattering of her heart under her chest and she tightened her hands around the arms of her chair in an attempt to still her insides but they moved despite it all.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, willing her voice to keep steady.

Kingsley maintained eye contact as he raised his wand. Hermione took a deep breath, sucked it in quickly.

"You know more than you're letting on," he replied. "There's no need for modesty, Hermione."

Hermione squinted her eyes at him.

"Excuse me?"

"That bit of magic? Why would you lie about it when you know I know full-well that you played quite a part in it being discovered?"

"I-I'm not following." Hermione let out a deep sigh of relief as Kings placed his wand on the desk and laid his clasped hands beside it.

"Your research on the stray sods, of course!" Kingsley laughed as he referenced one of her published papers on the species. "Entirely brilliant. It was your department that funded the project, don't you remember?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes. She hadn't been aware of any funding pertaining to her work on the stray sods. Her funding bracket was so small as it stood that she could hardly afford to maintain her entire staff.

"I'm so sorry for my memory lapse here," she started, "but could you remind me of what exactly you are referring to?"

Kingsley smiled warmly. "I'm surprised at you! Perhaps that illness you spoke of really has been messing with you. I remember very clearly speaking with you about your work on the sods after-"

"After the Camberman versus Degois trail," Hermione finished for him. "But we spoke then only about how my team had identified that the stray sods were, indeed, creatures and ought to be classified under the protection and preservation laws. I have no such memory of any research into manipulating their magic and profiteering from it, let alone the funding of such a project."

Kingsley frowned and averted his gaze for a moment.

"Nevertheless," Hermione continued. "No matter the magic you have, it's irresponsible to test it out on your friends without asking permission. It's called common courtesy, Kings."

"You seem very on edge today, Hermione, is anything bothering you?"

Hermione's eyes widened as she tightened her fists at her sides.

"You… you can't be serious?" She sputtered, raising her voice. "It hasn't been ten minutes since we spoke of Ron missing and-"

"Oh dear," Kingsley's face dropped, and Hermione found herself feeling guilty about yelling.

"Please, you must forgive me. There has been so much on my plate recently and I fear you have just suffered the consequences of my being Minister. I'm sure you understand, though, being so involved and invested in your work..."

Hermione grimaced. There sure were consequences, and it seemed that sacrificing his friends now appeared to be one of the consequences he'd be suffering very soon.

"Actually, Kings, I've been thinking…" she found herself suddenly sputtering, despite her better judgment. She'd wanted to do it more subtly and over a longer period of time so as to not look suspicious, but her mouth wouldn't stop speaking. "I'm starting to feel as if I might need to take a step back from the DRCMC-"

Kingsley's jaw dropped in surprise.

"Excuse me?" He balked. "But you've worked so hard to get to where you are there and-"

"When it comes down to it, I feel as if my strengths might be better utilized elsewhere."

"And where might that be? This is very unusual, Hermione, I really must say that I'm not sure if I can support your decision to leave your Department."

"It's just- Kings, you've got to understand. This position is everything I thought I wanted, and I've loved working there, but it's time for me to make a move elsewhere."

Hermione paused for a moment and thought out her options. She knew just how strange it looked for her to be saying such things now, without there having been any warning. It looked rash, like she'd just opened a secret door to the secret doings of a secret government and read every bit of secret paperwork there was to be had about it.

She bit at her lip. She needed Kingsley to need her to stay. She needed him to want to give her Mirthwood's job.

"I've been thinking…" She took a deep breath. "I've been considering leaving the ministry to pursue an education in America. I've already been accepted to a fairly prestigious school, and I'm-"

"Hermione-"

"I'd still be willing to offer my expertise to whoever is chosen to fulfill my position if that's your concern? I was hoping to come to speak to you about approving my resignation sometime next month, and who I'd recommend you promote."

Kingsley's large hands rubbed at his eyes before looking up at her with bleary eyes.

"This is all too sudden. I can't make any decisions about this right now."

"Kings," Hermione spoke condescendingly, her lungs wound and tied and constricted. "Are you considering not letting me leave?"

She already knew he wouldn't, but she needed to hear him say it.

She peered at him as she studied his movements, his facial tics and the subtle cues she'd spent the better part of five years learning. She already knew he had no intention of letting her leave, and he hadn't confided in her about the marriage law. He hadn't told her about the barbaric decision to force her into a marriage with a murderer. Not just any murderer either, a murderer who had tried to kill her specifically, and on more than one occasion.

She knew she couldn't just leave, and she knew Kingsley couldn't let her try. There had to be ways that the council, that Kingsley and Greengrass and Malfoy and all the lot, there had to be a way to guarantee that people fall in line and obey. It's why she refused to run. It's why she refused to just end the terror and confusion by simply decomposing where she sat, or stood, or lay. And something about the stray sods and the charm developed from her own research made her uneasy enough to both give up entirely and rage into a new investigation. Her own research - weaponized - without her knowledge or consent.

She wondered what else they'd taken and weaponized without permission.

Or what else they'd taken at all. Something they'd simply manipulated… Something that people gave willingly… Something that they'd had no reason to not give, even though saliva and hair samples really were odd to ask for.

Hermione could deduce that the DNA was used to help guarantee clean matches; accidental inbreeding could be entirely eliminated.

But was there more? Could there be more?

Hermione breathed deeply. Harry was right. No matter how much she'd trusted Kingsley in the past, he knew at this very moment as he sat across from her discussing funding for a project she hadn't signed off on and career moves, that in just a few short months she'd be sworn to a man who'd tried to kill her several times. Kingsley knew, and that fact made her blood boil, and it was all she could do to suddenly not bolt upright and hold her want to his throat. She'd wanted to do it muggle-style, hold a knife or something sharp, but a wand would do.

A wand could do enough damage.

She had the scarring across her torso to prove it.

But she also had the deep scarring on her forearm that proved that muggles knew torture too.

Hermione closed her eyes.

She wasn't bad. She wouldn't hurt her friend. Especially not when she didn't know yet his plans. The law wasn't yet revealed; perhaps he had something up his sleeve. Perhaps there was something - anything - that could point to him being on her side still.

Still an ally.

Still a friend.

Still the man she'd cried to when Harry was injured on the hunt for a rogue wizard. Still the man she trusted to find Ron. Still the man she trusted despite knowing what she knew.

But there was a simple question she could ask and a simple response he could give that would make up her mind for her; that would decide for her once and for all that either she trusted him, or she hated him.

"Kingsley," she started, a stray flicker of emotion bubbling up from under her voice, "there's something I need to ask you and-"

"I know what you're about to ask me, Hermione," Kingsley said, his voice low. He looked up to meet her eyes and widened them slightly, just enough to silence her. Hermione felt it tight in her chest and stared back, her heart beginning to pick up.

And then his demeanor changed, and he was smiling to her and leaning back in his chair.

"I'm sorry," he spoke, his voice light and jovial. "I just can't approve you leaving at this time. You have to understand… it's so busy, and with so many people retiring this year, I can't spare someone as detrimental to the system as you."

Her stomach ached at the confusion of everything.

"Kings…"

"I can't permit you to leave," he said sternly, with a frown on his face. "But perhaps I could be of some help. What about your position is bothering you?"

Hermione sighed and tried not to let the defeated sagging in her shoulders drag her down, despite the disappointment she felt in her bones about Kingsley's apparent … unwillingness ...to let her escape the law. It seemed cruel of him to try to help, considering he was still setting her up for murder in her own home.

He'd failed without even having the question being asked; he refused to help her. Knowing what he knew, she'd expect him to be siphoning off messages to the people that he cared about to try to save them.

If he didn't care enough to bargain with her in particular, that was one thing. And perhaps he'd already put in his bargaining chip for Harry, whose match seemed almost good from what Hermione could tell, though that could very well be due to politics. Matching the Boy Who Lived with a former Death Eater would raise every alarm. Perhaps Kingsley had saved Harry and perhaps he'd had nothing to do with that at all.

She took a deep breath and realized that she hadn't gotten herself anywhere. She still wanted to believe that he was fighting, even if he wasn't able to fight for her anymore.

"I've told you about my cousin, Daria, yes?" She asked, smiling when Kingsley shook his head at the third-cousin she'd only met once before. "Well then, Daria is a family counselor. She's found great peace in bringing love to marriages, and helping families find peace and happiness together. The DRCMC is amazing, but I've been fighting through so much division and politics to be able to make any headway, especially as a muggleborn, and I think I'd like to give bringing people together a try. I've been quite interested in perhaps shifting into that line of work and-"

"Hermione, you might just have the best luck of anyone I've ever met," Kingsley nearly burst, making Hermione flinch. "I might be able to help you with your conundrum. As I'm sure you're aware, the Ministry does have a department for exactly the kind of work you're wanting to look into. Now, I can't guarantee the position, but I can look into it for you if you'd like?"

Hermione looked down and pursed her lips, playing coy.

"I know what department you speak of, but I'm afraid that it's far too outdated for my liking. Mirthwood's so old," she explained, "and if I were to enter his department, I'd be working under someone who doesn't have the capacity to change. I'd want to revamp the entire system, make it more efficient and functional. We're moving into the future, Kings. I really feel like I need to be on top of it, not answering to other people."

Kingsley frowned.

"I can't promise you anything yet, Hermione, but I'd like to ask you to please hold off on your resignation for just a few months?"

She bit her lip. "As I said, I was considering holding off for about a month, but no more than that"

"I'll see what I can do," he resolved and took a deep breath. "Now, I had some questions that you might be able to answer. I took a look at the proposal you had Dennis bring to me and I'm fairly certain that the prospected budget is far too small. Like with Villa Luna, you're trying to appeal to the Wizengamot, which is fantastic, but it's limiting your abilities to actually do any good. Half of the problems we faced with Villa Luna are still due to insufficient funds, which could have been entirely avoided by taking into consideration that plans don't always work out how you imagine they will. Perfect execution is impossible; it would be stupid to believe that so many independent variants can be controlled exactly to our liking without investing the proper money."

Hermione's brows furrowed.

"So what you're telling me is to look at the numbers?"

Kingsley nodded. "Funding can never be overlooked."

Hermione apparated to the steps of her flat and pushed open the door, leaving it hanging open as she rushed through. Every paper still sat in their appropriate files and Hermione was vaguely aware, suddenly, of the feeling of loneliness. How long had it been since she'd actually been alone?

She squinted at one of the stacks of papers that she'd gone through a few days before and started peeling the pages from the top until she got to the financial statements.

Kingsley was right, she breathed over the statements. Funding can never be overlooked.

She wished she could tear through them all and immediately know everything there was to know, but this was a slow process. Working through finances, though she was excellent with numbers, wasn't her favourite thing to do by any means, and she found her eyes blurring as she read and reread pages over and over again.

But after an hour of diligent reading, Hermione closed her eyes and covered them with her hands, having found almost nothing at all.

How had she just read so much and learned so little?

She'd hoped to find something she'd missed the first time she went through it, and she was embarrassed to admit that she thought that this time around, she'd find something new. Something secret. Something hidden in there for only her to discover...

Why else would Kingsley tell her to look at the funding? Why would he widen his eyes at her in just the way Harry did? Why did he give off so many signals and why was she interpreting them to mean something they obviously didn't?

He's a liar, she fumed.

A prat. A bellend. An utter fool.

Someone she'd trusted. Someone she'd looked up to.

She slammed her fist against the hardwood of the coffee table and swatted aggressively at the papers until they littered the floor and then she jumped up to kick at them. Her hands shot to her hair and pulled at the frizzing, she could feel electricity starting to buzz, and she just wanted to scream, but she couldn't because Harry would be so worried, Harry would…

Harry wasn't here…

Hermione let out a ragged sound that she didn't even know she was holding inside of herself and let herself fall against the wall beside her. Her heartbeat felt too fast and she gripped at her chest as tears started to pull themselves from her eyes as quickly as the sounds pulled themselves from her body, enough sounds to fill the days she hadn't made any noises at all. And she found that her body had quite a lot to say, from the way it spoke when it was finally alone to hear itself speak.

It gasped and it hurled and it ached and stabbed and she could feel every worry and every fear she had like pins and needles under her skin.

She was scared for herself. She was scared for her future. She was scared for her friends, and for the friends who'd become family. She was scared for Harry, who didn't know his future wife, and she was scared for Ron, who had no future at all if he wasn't brought back.

And then another sob tore through her. How careless she'd been - an awful girlfriend. She didn't deserve him. In the whole time she'd spent panicking about this law, how much time had she really dedicated to thinking about him? Hardly any, and he wasn't just gone on a business trip anymore; he was missing. He was actually missing, and there was a very good chance that she might never see him again.

She slid down the wall until she was hugging her knees.

If he never came back, she wouldn't ever scream at him again for incessant tardiness and constant prattling. She would never stay up crying because he'd made her feel guilty for something that seemed so unimportant when she actually thought about it. And she'd never get to stroke his silly red hair from his face in the morning, in the sunlight, in the glow of the dim telly she'd purchased just a year earlier. She'd never get to kiss him one last time.

She wasn't even really sure when the last time she'd actually kissed had been. Before their fight, for sure. But when before? Had it been a kiss of affection? It hadn't, had it… it had it been a kiss of obligation when he came around and kissed her while she cooked... Had she smiled? She couldn't remember even stopping what she'd been doing. She couldn't remember if she'd even looked at him for the second it had lasted. And then they'd fought about the same thing they'd fought about the week before, and a few weeks before that, and he'd left in such a huff that she'd barely slept at all that night.

Still, though...

"Please, Ron," she whispered through her body's frenzied panic, "please be safe…"

It was dark when Harry froze as he arrived back at Hermione's flat and saw the door hanging open idly. The first thing he could truly think of was that he'd been gone for hours trying to get through to pass along the "urgent" plea to find Ron. He'd been gone so long, and he hadn't been there when Hermione needed him.

He took a step toward the stairs and tried to calm the fluttering inside his stomach.

"Hermione?" He called out as he broached the door frame. "Are you in here?"

He could hear her sniffling before he could see her.

She moved quietly through her flat as she walked towards him, reaching back with her arms to massage her tense shoulders. She didn't respond, instead choosing to walk straight up beside him and curl into him.

Harry shuffled uncomfortably for a moment before raising one of his arms to her waist.

Pulling her into a loose embrace, he heard her sniffle again.

"What happened after I left?" He asked, curious about her distress.

She scoffed.

"I don't know what to do, Harry," her voice whispered. "I think he'll recommend me for Mirthwood's job but-"

"Isn't that precisely what you wanted?"

Hermione sniffled again. "It was, but that was before I found out that my research on the sods was taken without my knowledge and manipulated behind my back." She let out a shaky breath. "Who knows what else is being manipulated? My papers on the centaur herds? My research on about a dozen previously unprotected magical species? There's no way I can protect everybody I need to protect. One way or the other, things are going to go terribly wrong, and I- I don't know what to do about any of it when I don't know what kind of timeline I'm working with…"

Harry winced and kicked quietly with his foot to close the open door behind him.

"What do you mean by that?" He asked, gently moving her toward her living room, away from the chilled entryway.

"Come now, Harry, you know exactly what I mean. To actually do any good, I need to be realistic, and part of being realistic is knowing that people don't usually get pregnant on their first try. The longer Ron is gone, the less chance I have of making anything work. And then what if he never comes back?"

Harry nodded. "I've been worrying about him too, but you can't get ahead of yourself. The other ministries will be involved by morning, and they'll find him. Last time he was gone this long, I went to Romania and found out he'd completed his mission days before and was hanging out with Charlie while he was getting paid time and a half, remember?"

Hermione almost laughed at the memory; of how mad Molly had been at Ron for trying to cheat money from the Auror's office, and at Charlie for allowing it.

Hermione tried to smile, tried to laugh, but she couldn't. "You're right. He's probably fine, but either way, I need to plan for the reality of things. If I play things right with Dolo-Dolohov, I might have, what, a few years? I've done the arithmancy calculations on it, and I'm pretty sure I've got between one and four years, considering there's some leeway in marriage dates. Even if I get into Mirthwood's position and force new legislation through that can protect people, or perhaps if I can make sure I have a hand in who gets the position after me… I know Dennis would do well after me in the DRCMC. He's got a good solid head on his shoulders and he's up to his ears in compassion, but he'd need someone equally as smart and empathetic to work with him if he's going to get anywhere in that council. I was thinking that Neville might be a good person to ring about that… He's wonderful… I really ought to make sure he knows how truly wonderful he really is... I've got a lot to work through," she said and paused, her voice scratching at her throat and her fingers shaking. "If you don't mind, I think I might need some alone-time tonight to really hammer out these plans…"

Harry shook his head sharply. "Not a chance. We'll figure this out together, 'Mione. Walk me through this, I'll help you however I can."

"I think that the council's found a way to turn our saliva and hair samples into some kind of leash and shock collar." She spoke robotically and Harry gingerly pulled her to sit on the couch. "I'm not entirely sure, but it's the only way I think they'd be able to control so many of us. So we can't run away, and we can't riot. There aren't any loopholes we can abuse to tear apart the legislation and Kingsley… I don't know if we can trust him. I think he's still on our side, I still get that feeling, but-"

"But you've got to be realistic about things?"

Hermione closed her eyes and a tear fell through them as she nodded shallowly.

"I need to plan," she said after a moment and tried to heave her body up from the couch, but Harry looped his arm around her waist to hold her down.

She was surprisingly strong, though, and broke free of him and stood. Harry jumped to his feet as a spark in her hair told him that her energy was picking up radically, and with it, the chance of hysteria.

"Harry, please. You need to leave. I need to call Dennis and Neville and-"

Harry put his arms up, hands gripping her shoulders to stop her from pacing. "Hermione, stop for a moment, please."

"And what?" She snapped at him, her face pinched as she pushed his arms away from her. "What good does stopping do me? What do I do now, huh? Where do I go from here?"

"Listen, I get it. You're scared, but I'll get you through this-"

"No, Harry, you can't! You can't promise anything! You tried, and I thank you for that, but if I want to continue my life here then I'll just have to come to terms with marrying that monst- That man." She stood up straighter, pushing her shoulders back. "We all have a part to play in this. It's time we get used to it."

Harry looked down at his hands, watching his fingers pick at each other absently as words refused to form.

"I know I can't promise anything, but-" He paused, taking a deep breath, still not looking up to see her face. "But I can try. We can try." He lifted his hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "Together."

There was no speaking to alert him that he'd crossed a boundary, no palpable anger that he could feel; only silence. Perhaps minutes passed before he heard an unsteady inhalation, a shaky intake of breath that made him look up to see his best friend, Hermione Granger, nearly in tears. His instincts kicked in, quickly embracing her before he could remind himself that she could very well be furious with him, and Hermione was not the kind of person he'd like to tick off. But instead of pushing him away and hexing him for such an outrageous proposition, she just stood there and let herself be hugged by this boy, this friend who'd had saved her countless times… who had been there for her when no one else had, who had offered her near-constant love and companionship.

This incredibly kind boy, she thought to herself, this beautiful soul…

She pulled herself from him, dry faced and sturdy.

"You're very kind, Harry, but-"

"But nothing. You're my best friend. I'd do anything for you. In case you hadn't noticed, this is included in 'anything.'"

She looked at him anew… this was not just the boy who lived. This was a man who would risk… who would … She couldn't quite put it into words. Here was a man who would actually do anything to save her, and her lips were quivering and she couldn't find breath enough to even speak.

"What about Ginny?" She asked carefully, quietly, when she had the stomach to look him in the eyes.

"I already told Ginny. She's known for a few days that if Ron didn't come back that I'd step in for you"

"A few-"

"Well, I know you and Ron were kind of, well- I know I'm not him. But there isn't much time. We've only got a couple of months left as you said, and if he comes back then that's excellent. But it's not as if you've got the time to just sit around hoping that he comes home incredibly potent." She suppressed a snicker, to which an audible laugh escaped his lips. "What I'm mainly getting at is that we can try. We can try as hard we have to to get you out of this."


	6. Chapter 6

It had only been a few days since he'd had offered to try to help her, and Hermione found herself absolutely incapable of rational thought. It seemed so impossible that she was in this position, and that he was in his and that he was still offering to stick his neck out onto the line to keep her safe.

He'd actually offered to create a human with her, and she couldn't wrap her head around that. She'd cried with him as he stood awkwardly and she knew he couldn't promise anything, she knew it. But still, the very idea that she was now hoping to become pregnant by her best friend made her so weak in the knees that she found herself flushing and getting red whenever she thought of him. The thought of him inside her in any form, be it his actual body, something that came out of his actual body, or a living thing created from something that came out of his actual body, made her dizzy and she wasn't certain if it was the good kind of dizzy or the bad, because she still had to sit own either way.

And then she blushed because the living thing created from something that came out of his actual body was already tugging at her heartstrings; she was wholly unprepared for motherhood, probably wouldn't be for a very long time, but the idea was thawing in her and it was almost… cute… that when she thought of the future, she wanted to see a small child with black hair in it.

And that in and of itself was so confusing for her that she, again, could hardly speak a rational sentence. It was so bad that she woke up two nights later in a panic, fearing that whatever string of words she'd said aloud to him when he'd made his offer didn't make any sense.

He didn't have any such fears of what she'd said. He knew her and knew that she had a tendency to start mumbling nonsense when she got uncomfortable or nervous. He had to mute himself on their phone call for a minute when she rang him up the next day to mumble over the phone for almost a half hour before telling him that she accepted his offer, and she nearly cried when he laughed just out of the sheer embarrassment.

"Well, I kinda figured you'd accepted when you didn't hex me," he'd pointed out. His voice was less buried, she noticed. Less… tense.

It was … it still just…

Hermione didn't have words for all the feelings she felt; relief was there, and so was love. So much love for the people who'd built themselves up around her - besides her. But there was terror too; terror that their plan wouldn't work, or that it would but wouldn't. Because she and Ron weren't married, what if they walked into the ministry, announced their pregnancy, and then what if the ministry knocked them out, terminated the pregnancy, and obviated the whole thing from their heads? What then, if she'd actually gotten pregnant by Harry and it was dead because it wasn't allowed and they'd been knowingly breaking the law? And what if the child was born healthy and happy to Hermione and Ron, who were allowed to stay together for the sake of their child? What would the dark-haired child ask when he was old enough to wonder why he looked an awful lot more like his uncle than his father? What happened if she dropped him when he was a baby? What happened if she banged his head on something, or if she didn't respond to his cries fast enough one day and he internalized abandonment and resentment for her and grew up hating her? What happened if the very child that saved her life wished that she were dead some days? And what would happen if there was another war? What would happen if the child was ever in danger, too much danger for Hermione to protect it from? What would happen if the child grew up and received a letter that the ministry had used saliva and hair samples to determine a match, and she had to watch her child go through precisely what she was going through now? What would happen then?

What would… what would she do?

What could she do?

"What about in vitro?" Hermione asked, laying down on her bed beside Ginny.

"Nope," Ginny shook her head. "That involves mediwitches, and there's no way in hell they'll be able to help you. I bet all fertility attempts like that have been suspended for now, don't you reckon?"

Hermione grumbled.

"What about insemination, then?"

Ginny groaned and turned to heave herself up on her elbows.

"And what, use a turkey baster like in those movies?" she asked, looking at Hermione dryly. "We've been over this already, 'Mione. You already know what the best option here is."

"Best," Hermione laughed. "Does it not seem surreal that a two weeks ago, if you'd told me that I'd be lying in my bed wondering how best to get impregnated by Harry, I'd have choked on my own saliva and hacked out a lung?"

"Consider yourself lucky," Ginny laughed. "There are a lot of guys out there worse to have a child with. For example-"

"Cormac McLaggen?"

"Merlin, no! I was thinking about some of the dreadful Slytherins, I hadn't even considered the dreadful Gryffindors! I change my answer. There are Cormac's in the world, be grateful he's not your sole shot at freedom."

Hermione smiled and laughed alongside her friend, who'd proven herself to be much more adept at girl-talk than Hermione had really given her credit for over the past few years. With her busy quidditch schedule, she was difficult to actually spend alone time with. Then there was the fact that she and Harry had broken up, and Ginny wasn't so interested in spending time with the only girl who couldn't be on her side in an argument. And then there was the bonus of Hermione dating Ginny's brother, and neither wanted to really be sharing girl-talk when that hung in the air between them.

"The Slytherins would be awful," Hermione commented, her smile fading, her mind fleeting towards thoughts of a particular Slytherin who bore sole responsibility for the scars across her torso.

Ginny caught Hermione's hand settle just over her ribcage and her jaw dropped.

"'Mione, I'm so sorry-" she stuttered, her eyes wide. "I don't know why I said that, I was thinking of the prats we went to school with. Please, forget that I said that."

Hermione looked toward her briefly and nodded, still with her hand ghosting over her shirt.

"How about you tell me what I can expect over the next couple of months?" Hermione grimaced. "Do you have any pointers for me?"

"None that really stand out in particular," Ginny jumped at the change in conversation. "He isn't going to expect you to be kinky or anything; my only pointer would be to just remember that you don't need to impress him. You aren't doing this for him. You're doing this for you, so go at whatever pace you need to go at."

Hermione's cheeks flushed.

"That might be a bit of a problem," she confessed. "My pace is… how should I put this - not conducive to the timeframe we're working with; in fact, I don't even know if my timeframe ends at all."

Ginny squinted at her, a hint of disbelief colouring her features.

"Hermione…" she started, a smile tugging at her lips. "Don't tell me…"

Hermione groaned and covered her face with her sweatered arms.

"Hermione! How on earth did I not know!? How on earth have you lasted so long without-"

"The first question is easier to answer," she laughed. "Ron's your brother, I didn't expect you'd want to know! And I won't get into any detail, but it's never felt like it's the right time. Ronald doesn't exactly understand, he's fairly vocal in his frustration over that and-"

"Let me guess; you want the moment to be right, and every time he questions your rationale, he mucks up any chance of the moment being right?"

"Exactly!" Hermione exclaimed. "I'm not expecting some grand fairytale deflowering, but I always hoped that it would feel right. I don't want my first time to feel pressured, is that too much to ask for?"

Ginny scoffed. "Apparently it is. How wonky is it that the first time you actually do it will be when you're trying to get pregnant to save you from marrying an absolute lunatic?"

"Mortifying. I just accepted this proposition yesterday and-"

"Just accepted? Didn't he ask you a few days ago?"

"I told you that my pacing is bad! I thought I had to call him to formally accept, I don't know how to do this!"

"Wait," Ginny laughed. "You called him to tell him that you consented to getting pregnant by him?"

Hermione covered her face with her hands. "I thought I needed to! I didn't realize it was a given!"

"Jeez, 'Mione. For someone so smart, you really can be awfully thick sometimes."

Hermione laughed and playfully shoved Ginny's shoulders.

"So," Ginny started. "Is the day set? When does this all go down?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Tomorrow, I think. That's why I needed your help today!"

"Right, right, right," Ginny laughed. "So THAT'S why we spent four hours preparing fertility potions, I must have forgotten!"

Beside her, Hermione threw her hands into the air and let out a loud sigh. Ginny laughed at the exasperated sound of it and it took a few moments of it to realize that she could hear Hermione's light laughter beside her.

"And you're sure I can't just inseminate it myself?" Hermione asked, breathlessness dotting her question.

Ginny turned fully onto her side and clasped Hermione's hands in her own.

"I'd love to help you try out every possible option, but that could take years. So for now, we're going to thank Circe that you've got such wonderful friends and perhaps you'll consider making them some dinner because, Salazar's Sandwitches, 'Mione, I don't know how you can go so long without thinking about food. I am starving!"

Ginny had barely opened her door when a loud popping noise erupted from behind her. She nearly screamed in the surprise of it all, but the quiet shuffling of feet was too familiar and the hair on the back of her neck immediately settled.

"What are you doing?" she asked, turning around to look upon him standing there in the dark - in the cold.

Harry knew Ginny well, and knew that she needed time to be alone and to think, he could tell by the way her shoulders curled forward as if trying to form a protective bulb around her heart, but he couldn't help it. Ginny was smart, and he didn't have enough people that knew everything about what they knew. Whatever happened between them was in the past, and he kept remarking over and over how well she seemed to be adjusting to everything. She was strong, and Harry was thankful to have her on his team again. His and Hermione's team; the three of them. Possibly soon to be four, if Harry did his job right. Maybe the five of them, if Ron were also in the picture. If he stayed in the picture...

"Ron will hate me when he gets home, won't he?" He'd asked Ginny as he sat on her floor, her on her bed, as Molly and Arthur busied themselves downstairs.

Ginny pursed her lips. "He'll have a lot more to hate if he gets home and it's too late."

Harry groaned and let his head fall back onto the bed frame.

"Have you really still not heard from him?"

She shook her head. "I'd have told you as soon as I knew anything, you know that. Mum sent Charlie back to Romania to see if he's stopped by there at all. But you said that Hermione thinks the saliva and hair samples were partially just a ruse to get our DNA? If she's right about the shock collar and leash, then we shouldn't be too worried. He'll come back. He'll have to."

"Just not at the right time."

"No," Ginny mulled over her lip. "Not in time to get her out of the law. But we've got you to do that. The only reason I want him home right now is to know that he's safe."

"You don't want him home for Hermione?"

Ginny tucked her chin under the mouth of her sweater.

"She deserves someone who isn't so… pushy, if you know what I mean."

Harry squinted. "Vaguely. What do you mean by pushy?"

"Just that, well, you know. He can get a bit demanding with her and it's awkward as hell to see him pulling his shit. I was over at her flat just before I got home and he came up in the conversation. Just briefly, but I don't think he treats her as well as he should. He's obviously my brother, though. I want the best for him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think he deserves the best."

"Harsh," Harry mumbled, removing his glasses for a bit. Just to clear his head, to dull the familiarity of the room around him.

"Not quite so harsh when you've seen how they interact. Sure, they love each other. But you and I loved each other. That didn't make us right for one another."

"I-Gin, you've-"

"You don't have to say anything. Don't worry, I know it all already. I can deal with that. I'm just trying to focus on making the things in my life count. If I'm going to be married to Oliver, I might as well start it off on the right foot, right? Know where things went wrong with us and not have any reservations about falling in love again someday."

"He's a good man," Harry interjected. "Really good. You'll like him."

"But will he like me, that's the real question."

"Of course he will, what's not to like? You're easy to love. He's a lucky guy."

Ginny smiled at him and, with an 'almost' of a tear in her eye, she blinked and watched the man sitting on the floor with his back to her.

"Hermione's really lucky to have you, Harry," she whispered. "You'll make an excellent father."

"The deal isn't to be a father, Gin. It's to be a sperm donor until Ron gets home. Everything after that is up to her."

Ginny laughed and bit her lip, smiling, and sat up against the headboard.

"Get up here," she patted the newly empty space beside her.

Harry twisted his head in confusion and looked warily toward the empty space on the bed.

"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, I'm-"

"You prat," she laughed. "Get up here and tell me everything you know about Oliver. I want to hear every detail."

Harry rolled his eyes and put his glasses back on, squaring his back and hauling himself up onto the bed.

"He's driven as hell. Dedicated to his quidditch and to his career. You're a lot alike in that respect," he mumbled. "He's nurturing, too. Took me into the team when I was only a first year, didn't know anything about me but trusted in McGonagall when she told him to give me a shot. He could have put his team first and refused outright, but he's trusting. I'm sure he'll be furious, but he's matched with you, and that'll make it easier for him to get past the whole forced pairings part of it."

"How nurturing can he really be when McGonagall almost had him kicked off the team for allowing you to get hurt? I also distinctly remember early mornings and long hours and I was only a kid at the time, but he seemed ruthless."

Harry smiled. "As I said, he's dedicated. And perhaps I should have rephrased that... he's nurturing in the sense that he trained me right from the start and made sure I lived up to the potential that he and McGonagall saw in me. He may have let me get hurt to win a game, but he'd get hurt all the time to win games too. We weren't on entirely different pages. And he's loyal. He was at Hogwarts that day. He fought with us; helped carry the dead back to the castle, too..."

"I remember seeing him, but I hardly paid any attention. I was so focused on-" Her voice broke and Harry immediately paled. He knew her faltering like the back of his hand; whenever she thought of Fred she suddenly lost her voice and it … she… Harry nodded to her though looking in another direction, just to reassure her that he understood and that he was there; that he heard her.

"It was a busy day," he continued for her, waiting for the telltale sniffle before speaking that meant she was ready to return to the conversation.

"Tomorrow will be busy too, I hear?" Ginny asked quietly, silently, almost mutely.

"You were just with her, how is she doing?" He asked, curious about Hermione's state of mind and glad to be speaking about his only important reason for being there. He'd decided to leave her alone since their phone call. Give her some space. Let her have her own breathing room for a bit.

"She was laughing," Ginny smiled. Harry's eyes shot open.

"She was?" He asked, cautious to get his hopes up in case he'd misheard.

But he hadn't

"She made jokes, she giggled, she made me dinner-"

"So you think she's good?"

"She's better than I'd have expected. I think she's just been so wound up for so long."

"Do you have any pointers? For tomorrow?" He asked, looking down to twiddle his thumbs.

"What is with you two and asking me for pointers?" Ginny let out a loud sigh with a smile. "Really, you two are best friends. You've known her forever, you don't need my help."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Just give me one bit of advice and I'll get back to talking about Oliver. Deal?" He leveled his eyes to her and raised his right hand, holding it out to her to shake in agreement.

Ginny eyed his outstretched hand and thought for a moment.

"Be gentle with her," she said, thoughtfully. She didn't take his hand to shake it; she let it hang in the air and pretended she hadn't seen it. Harry left it up for a few more seconds before awkwardly putting it down onto his lap. "She's not fragile by any means, but she's just… Go slowly. Let her control the pace of things a bit."

"Slowly and gently," he resolved. "I can do that."

"Now," Ginny smiled. "Back to Oliver… I've seen him make some really odd fashion choices in the past… please explain."

Hermione fussed about the state of her flat for hours after waking up. In truth, she'd been awake for hours before she started cleaning the mess. But she couldn't jump to cleaning it immediately; she needed to organize where everything would go. How it would all lay out. She couldn't just put everything into the wastebasket and pretend it didn't exist, despite wanting nothing but to do that.

It took hours of meticulous paperwork filing and piles to thoroughly clean her flat, and she couldn't make it more organized if her life depended on it. There wasn't a thing out of place, and that, in turn, made her all the more uncomfortable. It was all fine when she had other things to preoccupy herself with but now, with Harry to come to her flat at any moment, she felt the intensely queasy feeling return to her stomach.

What if he changes his mind?

She couldn't imagine that he would, but then again, why wouldn't he? She caught a glance of herself in the mirror and looked herself over, smoothing her hair back and brushing a few stray hairs from her dress.

Ginny had, unceremoniously, informed her that a dress would work best if she was nervous about being seen. So long as she wasn't wearing tights or shorts underneath, she could remain nearly entirely hidden from her best friend's gaze. After this is all said and done, perhaps they could keep their friendship as normal as possible if he didn't have to see all of her...

Just then, a noise started to sputter from her living room, and she could hear the telltale sounds of the floo spitting someone out of itself. Harry stumbled out of her fireplace with a bottle of Firewhiskey in his hand just as Hermione ran to welcome him in, though it very much felt like it was just as much his flat nowadays as well.

Hermione eyed the firewhiskey with a smile on her lips, to which he let out a chuckle in return.

"I figured it might help us get a bit more comfortable with the whole situation…" Hermione smiled and left for the kitchen to grab a couple of cups. When she returned he was already on the couch, face red and fiddling with his glasses.

"Do not tell me you've broken your glasses again or so help me, Harry."

He smiled up at her, taking the cups and filling them halfway. Hermione raised an eyebrow, earning a snicker from her best friend.

Nodding to each other with a smile, the two took their glasses and Harry had to suppress a giggle when Hermione gulped down the whole thing in one go and choked on the bitter taste of it.

"Bastard," she laughed, wiping her dress' sleeve across her mouth. "You really skimped and got the cheap stuff, didn't you?"

Harry laughed loudly, the noise filling up her living room. "It was the only unopened bottle I had!"

"Unopened because it tastes like polyjuice," she joked, setting her glass on the table with a thud.

"The good news," he finished his own glass, "is that it tastes so awful because the alcohol content is higher than regular old firewhiskey." He raised his eyes to her as he sat his glass down beside hers and grinned, pouring another couple fingers into the pair of glasses before him.

Harry handed Hermione her cup and with another cheers, they each took a casual sip.

"Merlin," Hermione whispered, "I needed that."

Harry smiled. "Same. We should have done this days ago."

Hermione nodded.

"Harry," she started, a bead of sweat popping up on her forehead as she looked down to her hands. "I just want to ask again, are you sure? About all of this?"

"Hermione," he responded, rolling his eyes. "How many ways are there to say yes?"

"I just- have you thought this through? This is a big decision, one that you can't take b-"

"And I won't want to take it back. Even if it doesn't work, at the very least we tried and gave it everything we had. This is something I can sacrifice for you."

"But are you really prepared to stand by if this whole scheme works?"

"Of course. In my eyes, I couldn't ask for a better mother for my child. You're brilliant and kind-hearted and nosy, frustratingly-so, but you're also fun, yeah?"

Hermione smiled and pushed at him playfully, but the concern was still there. How prepared was he to give his firstborn to be raised by other people?

"That's very thoughtful of you, it really is. The intentions are lovely and I'm so honoured, but I'm scared that being Uncle Harry to your own child would be torturous and-"

"And again, I'm not making any decisions lightly. I'm fully aware that you and I can't just storm the ministry and pretend we've fallen madly in love. There would be too much suspicion, and we'd have to participate in some long-winded conspiracy of our own that really just tears all of our allies from us. Trust me, 'Mione. I'm thinking things through, I really am. I grew up with awful guardians. Seeing whatever kid this results in be raised by you and Ron would be a gift. Besides, it's not like it would be my kid in the first place. I'm not getting my hopes up here that they'll ring me up for quidditch lessons or that I'll be invited to the birth. It's not like I'm expecting it to feel easy and natural, not at first, but it'll get there. It's what I want, "Mione. I wouldn't have offered if I couldn't bear it."

Hermione nodded and gulped, digesting his words, and tried to blink away the sudden images of Harry holding up a tiny inky-haired mess on a broomstick and hovering a couple feet off the ground.

"So you're still, I don't know, you're still on board then?" She asked, accidentally biting her tongue on the question.

Harry shook his head and laughed, taking another sip from his glass.

"Is there some other question you're alluding to here, or are you just trying to stall? Because you know I'm awful with languages but I know where your dictionaries are and I'll go look up 'yes' in as many languages as I need to before you get it into your thick skull that I'm-"

"H-Harry," she interrupted, chewing her lip. "I don't want to be annoying but… I just- uh, will it hurt? It's just that I've never- well, you know. And I think I've been working myself up over this and-"

"You mean you and Ron-" Harry thought back to Ginny's and his conversation and nodded in understanding.

"We've only kissed. It never felt right to do any more than that."

"And what about now?" He asked, thinking of his very important task of being gentle and being paced.

"Well," she started, "I suppose the fact that this is what I've chosen has helped me take the edge off. Also the firewhiskey, thank you for thinking of that. That's definitely helping. It's also nice that our entire relationship doesn't hinge on this moment happening or not happening; and if I'm being completely honest, I'm glad it'll be you."

Harry nodded. "If it means anything to you, this isn't something I'll take on lightly. I know there's an end goal to this, but I'll do my best to make this special for you or-"

Hermione laughed, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm not needing candles and champagne, Harry. I don't need the fancies of romance any more than you do, I'm perfectly happy with this god-awful firewhiskey."

She had spent so much of her friendship with Harry and Ron trying to fit in with them that oftentimes she felt they forgot she was a girl entirely. While she knew they knew she was a girl, it still felt like she was being seen as easier to deal with than a girl; something in the middle - neither here nor there.

Ron laughed whenever she suggested a fancy meal, declared her suddenly high maintenance, and took her to a pub he liked that played muggle football on the telly. And Harry… well, she'd lived with Harry long enough on the run that they'd both effectively thrown out any notion of the other person as the opposite gender. They were simply friends, and this created a whole host of both problems and victories for her; on one hand, she presumed that returning back to regular sexless friendship would be smooth. On the other, what if… what if he couldn't see her as enough of a girl to even participate in a sexual relationship with him, no matter how urgent and short-lived?

Harry looked at her with pointed eyes, and she felt all the blood in her body rush up to her face.

"You forget that I did not grow up with 5 brothers and am therefore not predisposed to see romance as a sign of vulnerability. You also seem to be forgetting that despite my lack of skill in wooing women, I am not a hopeless case."

Hermione nodded to him, mouth shutting.

Harry suddenly feared that perhaps she was trying to keep him at a distance.

"Listen, 'Mione, if you're worried that any romance will affect our friendship-"

Her face became bright red as if every blood vessel in her set up a neon sign. Not even an efficient neon sign either; the tacky cheap kind that flickered and caught on fire. The kind that strip clubs and psychics used.

"No! Not at all," she stammered, "it's just, nobody's ever seen me that way before. What if you don't like it, or heavens... What if I'm not good at anything? What if you can't, I don't know, what if you can't get it up for me? You've seen me as a friend for so long, Merlin, I'm not sure if you could be attracted to me even drunk-"

Harry blinked at her.

Then he started laughing uncontrollably, and Hermione could feel pricks of tears and covered her face with her hands.

"Hermione," Harry laughed, "Hermione, look at me."

Her hands reluctantly left her face.

"Listen to me," he said sternly. "You are beautiful. You always have been, even when your hair is out to here and you haven't slept in three weeks. And if you're so concerned about me seeing you, then we have a perfectly functioning lamp right behind you that has the ability to turn off if you so choose. Not that you have any reason to be self-conscious. Trust me, you're the kind of girl guys have… uh, dreams about. Which brings me to my next point: you are more than enough to, how do I put this… you're more than enough to, you know... you know what I'm trying to say. To arouse me..." He could feel his face turning bright shades of pink and imagined that he looked unnatractively similar to a pygmy puff.

Hermione pulled the sleeves of her dress over her hands, balling them into fists.

Harry raised a hand to her shoulder and remembered Ginny telling him to go slowly, gently, but as he looked at Hermione, he realized that Ginny didn't know shit.

Harry knew her better than anyone; except perhaps Ron. But Harry knew her in a different way than Ron did - Harry knew Hermione when she wasn't trying to impress him, when he wasn't trying to impress her. He knew her when she felt like a thousand mosquitoes biting at him and making him miserable, but like a thousand mosquitoes only if he was a bug lover and had some clinical condition prohibiting him from ever feeling annoyed. He knew her a hell of a lot better than Ginny did, and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before inwardly cursing himself. Wasn't he supposed to listen to Ginny? Wasn't that the whole reason he'd gone over to see her yesterday?

But he looked up and he could see that Hermione was overthinking things and would never make the first move in this situation. Yes, she was a lion. But she was the brain and he was the body, and they weren't always this way but she was the thinker, she could think, she thought, she possessed ACTUAL THOUGHT and produced it on a REGULAR BASIS and he could only think about gnomes all of a sudden, he couldn't stop thinking about them. They were clouding his brain and the next thing that came to mind were the freckles across her nose, just a light dusting, (you could hardly see them in the winter, but he knew them so well he could map them out with his eyes closed - was that strange for best friends?), and then he remembered how the last time they'd had a normal lunch together, he'd SLURPED HIS SOUP and 'oh my god', his face started to burn. His DNA would mix with hers and form a HUMAN and then that human would slurp and Hermione would make the same face she made at him when he did it and regret not waiting for Ron to come home, Ron didn't slurp did he? Maybe he could pretend that Ron taught the kid how, but -

He lifted the paused and shaky hand to her face, softly stroking his thumb across her cheek.

Her skin was soft and dewy - almost glowing. Elastic. Youthful. Rosy from embarrassment and pale from refusing to go outside for so long. But she had nice skin, nice freckles, and it made him smile.

"Harry," she started, eyes worried and voice uneven. "You don't ha-"

Harry leaned in, pressing his lips against hers. She was still for a moment before, heaven bless her, she responded to him. She opened her mouth just a fraction, but it was enough. He let his hand move to the back of her head, interweaving with her hair and pulling it away from her, pushing it behind her shoulders.

She'd lifted her hands to grasp the arms of his shirt, and pulled back for a moment.

Harry stopped immediately and made a move to take a step back, but her firm grip on his clothing held him close to her.

She looked up at him and he could tell by the slight indent in her lip that the inside was being nibbled inside her now closed mouth and he could feel panic starting to build inside him, maybe Ginny really was right, maybe she actually did know her shit and maybe he should have gone slower. But then she smiled at him and laughed, and Harry leaned forwards again, pulling her to him and wrapping one of his arms around her waist, holding her there, holding her still in the world, in time.


	7. Chapter 7

Hermione couldn't imagine that there would be so many reasons to kiss Harry other than the main few; the need to survive, the demand for urgency and maybe even the inkling urge to see what it would feel like. But then he kissed her and there were more - so many more- and she couldn't keep track of them all.

There was the moment before they even touched, where his breath smelled like peppermint, or something close to it, and it drew her in ever so slightly.

And then they touched, or rather, their lips did, their mouths touched just a bit, and it was nearly more than she could process. He felt so different from Ron who always had a sense of urgency about him, a sense of anxiousness, a feeling that he was waiting for something. But Harry was soft, and Harry was quiet, and Harry smelled nice. So she leaned in and found another reason to kiss him. His eyelashes were so long from here, she noticed, and she knew that wasn't a reason to kiss him or to kiss anyone, but it felt like one now.

"Harry," she muttered breathlessly, "you have to promise me one more thing."

He didn't say anything, just looked into her eyes. Searched in them for a moment before blinking - such a slight affirmation, but she knew him.

"Please never leave?" She held her breath.

"Why on Earth would I leave?"

"Just… just promise me that we'll always be friends? You'll always be in my life? I couldn't bear it if something were to happen and-"

Harry swatted away her words with a quick lean in, a momentary press of his lips against hers and suddenly his face was inches away again and tantalizingly close. Close enough that she could smell his breath and know that it was, in fact, spearmint toothpaste, and there was a giant swell in her chest that he'd remembered such a detail from class all those years ago. He'd been so concerned with other things that whole year, how had he remembered?

"Whatever happens, we're on the same team," he breathed, and Hermione felt the scent sink through her veins like hot wax, filling her body and dripping down the inside of it, pooling in her stomach. The scent was intoxicating; more so than the firewhiskey, and Hermione couldn't even begin to comprehend how in the whole history of their friendship, she hadn't felt this way when she was near him before.

"I promise," he said, and she bit her lip, looking about his face for hints of something - she wasn't sure what - just… Just something to keep her rational. Maybe it was the fertility potion she and Ginny had made. She'd read the descriptions clearly and wasn't expecting this kind of reaction, so she had to guess that it wasn't that at all. But it felt like it was, and that was confusing. It wasn't rational. She wanted more.

She leaned in, just slightly enough to press her forehead against his; breath him in and close her eyes as the thick honey, hot wax, coated her insides.

"I'm going to start making a spreadsheet," she said abruptly, and so matter of factly that Harry reeled at the sudden change in tone and apparent topic.

"Wha-"

"Of everything we know about both of our families, ancestry, just so I can be prepared," she rambled almost incoherently. "In case there's anything to be prepared for, right?"

He laughed. "You're stalling again."

But she couldn't just stop, there was something in the way. A ward of some kind that kept the butterflies locked in her stomach, a self-conscious push that kept her leaning in, but there was also one bit of something that she couldn't name that made it feel wrong.

Weird.

And he could hear the thumping of her veins again, and he leaned his forehead down against hers and worked to steady his heartbeat as it thudded through him. She took a deep breath against him and let his cool forehead brush up against her cool skin. She thought she'd been flushed and sweating but she felt so cold now.

And she could smell him, and she could feel him, and they were just standing there with her fingers clinging to his sleeves and his hands firmly against her back and his forehead on hers, and they were just breathing together. That's all they were doing, but tears pricked at her eyes.

It felt like one of those scenes from a movie, where they weren't being exceptionally romantic or physical, but she felt in the fluttering that hummed against her stomach that it was perhaps one of the most intimate moments she'd ever had.

Might ever have again.

Sensing a slight shift in tone, Harry let his eyes remain closed, just lightly, and felt his hands gently move down Hermione's back until they were just brushing either side of her waist. They were really hardly there, just enough to feel them and just enough to keep her steady.

And then he realized that he couldn't hear her breathing anymore.

And then her forehead against his felt just a bit different, and she was moving, rising. He helped steady her as she leaned up on her toes and carefully pressed her lips against his, and his skin didn't feel normal anymore. It felt brighter somehow, as if light had been hiding in between hair follicles and pores and it felt different than when he kissed her before. It felt different somehow, but he couldn't put his finger on it in the fleeting second he allowed himself to ponder and he didn't want to waste any more than a fleeting second on a fleeting curiosity that didn't matter.

It was so gentle but it was there against him, and he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to fumble the moment by being hard or strong or too much or… And he didn't even want to be, he wanted the softness. And she was soft against his lips, and then it was more than just a press, it was a movement, and he shuddered, raising one of his hands to the side of her face.

He opened his eyes as the kiss ended, despite the absolute ember in him that sat low in his abdomen telling him not to let it end at all, and when he opened his eyes to see Hermione staring back at him, the ember flickered, licked at his insides. He didn't have to lean down to kiss her again; she was already on her toes and close enough for a breath between them to draw them together.

He kissed her again, and this time he opened his mouth so it wasn't just their lips touching - that wasn't good enough anymore. Or rather, it was, but he wanted to feel more than just her skin against his skin. So he opened his mouth, and she made a quiet sort of noise when she tasted his tongue—it tasted so much like spearmint and something absolutely foreign, and she couldn't help but give into curiosity. She wanted to know what it was, so of course she had to taste him again - taste him more - taste him better.

She was a bit confused as well, because she'd kissed Ron so many times and while it wasn't necessarily bad, it didn't feel like this. And she'd loved him so much a few times, but it never felt like this… And she just - she didn't feel like this with him.

Ever. At all. Not once.

With eager ears, Harry heard a soft sound escape her and it wasn't even a second between breath and breathlessness, and he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back and suddenly it wasn't just kissing.

She'd backed up, hitting her legs against the couch, and she'd stumbled, pulling him down as she tripped over the couch. They laughed, but neither could keep their hands from each other's shirts, their clothes, pulling them tighter to pull them over, closer, closer, so much closer, and Hermione found herself on her side against the back of the couch with Harry over her, between her legs, holding her firmly as he pressed into her. It was enough to blur her eyes over. They were so close, so close, so close, so close - but as he settled himself between her legs, pulling her dress up to run his hands along the length of her legs, she tightened around him, wanting to keep him there for just a moment longer. Harry sat, crouched, with her knees on either side of his hips and then slowly knelt forwards to place a soft kiss on her lips that parted ever so slightly to let him in. He smiled again, tangling one hand in her hair delighted when she made a squeaking gasp as he gripped her tightly and kissed her gently.

His hand lifted behind him to latch onto her knee and he pulled himself on it, putting an awkward pressure on her while he pulled up, and then he kissed her knee. He put his mouth to the side of it, and she could feel his tongue against her skin and suddenly she knew he'd just licked salty skin because she had a habit of sweating when she got nervous, and she cursed herself for not having thought of that. She'd thought through nearly everything, but hadn't even thought of sweat?

Her eyes bugged out of her skull as she buried her face under her arms, how could she have forgotten? She must be mad, how could she forget such a thing? And now he'd be with her for the first time and his nose would wrinkle, and he'd wonder what in Merlin's name smelled so-

And then her body jolted as it was yanked from its position against the couch's back and suddenly her legs were hanging off the edge with her neck at an awfully uncomfortable position.

"AHeuh," she made an ungodly noise as the sudden movement, surprised.

"Harry!" She nearly yelled, and she gasped as she tried to move and couldn't, her wild mane underneath her and tangled into the mottled fabric of the old couch. To Harry's abject horror, in his hurry to help her he'd gotten himself tangled up into it as well.

"Fuck," he murmured, eyes wide. "I'm on your hair, don't move."

Hermione's own eyes squeezed shut in anticipation.

"Did you move?" she asked, her eyes still squeezed shut.

"What?"

"DID YOU MOVE?" She asked louder this time, yelling.

"Did you feel me move? No, I'm stuck," he murmured, trying to gauge the best exit strategy.

"Stuck!?"

"My knee sank between the cushions and I'm- wait- don't move, I'm trying to get out first-"

"You're pulling-"

"I know, stop talking."

"Okay, but you're pulling-"

"I really can't help that right now. It'll just be a few more seconds unless you want me to lose a limb to your horrific old couch that, have I ever mentioned, is awful?"

"Don't be rude to Chester, I salvaged him from my parents' home after they sold it to move to Australia!"

"And they sold it for good reason, Hermione, it's so ugly!"

"You're ugly." Hermione retorted, immediately flying to cover her mouth with whatever hand wasn't caught up in the mangled, tortuous mess of the couch and hair fiasco.

"Oh my God… the smartest person I've ever met just called me ugly…" Harry drawled out, trying to hide a smile.

"That must mean you're really ugly then." She started laughing, a large grin spreading across her face so wide that the tops of her cheeks were probably restricting her vision—he could hardly see her eyes.

"Guess I'm the wrong person to have a kid with, I might as well leave now-"

"Don't you dare, Mr. Potter. You're stuck, remember?"

"Oh, I remember now, I must have forgotten," he laughed. "I guess I might just have to stay for a while."

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her, and couldn't help but chuckle as he caught her laughing mouth.

"Harry," she started, her laughing falling to the side. "I'm afraid I just ruined the moment."

Harry squirmed a little more and managed to free his hand that had been just under her.

"You!? No, I ruined it, I'm sor-"

"Not even an hour in and we're both arguing over who ruined a moment. We're really a rough pair, aren't we?" She asked, solemnly.

Harry grimaced. "I wouldn't put it like that. Rather, I'd like to think that both of us laughing there, like this, should mean that we're a better pair than most."

"So the moment isn't lost? I'm not horribly unattractive to you now?" She smiled, and her light teasing tone had returned.

"About as unattractive as a full-blooded veela, I'm afraid."

Hermione giggled and pushed against his shoulder playfully, like she'd always done.

"Then kiss me again, ugly boy."

"You know, I'm pretty sure that's part of a song… Perhaps we ought to get up and go peruse the goddamn internet in search of what I might vaguely remember?" Harry leaned closer to her and whispered his words against her neck. It made her breathless, and she kicked one of her legs out and around his waist, tightening it dramatically.

"Don't tease me, Harry, you've lost all control here now."

"Oh, have I?" His warm breath tickled her neck. "I distinctly remember you being the one with the incredibly tangled hair. I also remember you to be quite ticklish…"

Hermione's eyes widened. "No!" she gasped, suddenly bucking up with her pelvis to try to overtake his position, and then gasping because her hair had gotten horribly pulled.

He made a quite "oof"ing noise and jumped to renegotiate her position with her, heaving her body up to let her hair loose behind her. She grumbled and patted her hair carefully, and then sputtered a cough when Harry's hand laid down on the thigh she just remembered was sticking out toward him, around him. With her legs open. And only knickers underneath. Her dress, in the kerfuffle, had edged up around her waist, and her face grew hot.

Her eyes widened and she tried to leap up, but he held her down and knelt over to hold her legs in place as they shook quietly, softly, hesitantly.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but when she opened her eyes after a minute of shaking, she was surprised to see him with his own eyes closed and his cheek resting against the skin just above her knee.

Her breath got caught in her throat and her leg twitched a bit, and she felt his stubble graze her soft skin, tickling her.

The sound of her stifled laughter didn't open his eyes immediately, but it did loosen them.

Without opening his eyes, his hands resumed their position on her skin and against her, the laughter suddenly evaporated into pure tension. His fingers feeling as if they were on fire on her skin somehow, and she nearly moaned as they grazed the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, his hands nudging under her dress more and more with every intake of breath. And then there was this pit in her abdomen that only grew when - and… she couldn't even think straight, she still couldn't think straight at all. Harry's fingers nearly set her alight, and she felt a new desire to cling to this pit rather than bury it. He traced tiny circles into her thigh and she wondered if this was the stuff that poets wrote about when they wrote about lust and intimacy and fucking - surely she knew that they were different entities. Lust and Fucking - never the same. Different, somehow.

Hermione leaned back and let go of the tension in her stomach muscles. She took a deep breath and let it out shakily, letting herself become hypnotized by the strangely comforting feeling of his skin against hers. And Harry let himself sink into her. He gently kissed her neck, gently rubbed his nose against her throat.

Just as she imagined no greater pleasure, Harry's knuckle grazed the thin fabric of her knickers.

Hermione gasped.

Harry really had tried to work slowly, for her, but at her gasp he tightened his eyes and kissed her with more force, letting his teeth touch her soft skin. He skimmed his knuckle over her knickers again and at her squeak, he danced his fingertips across them, pleased to find them nearly clinging to her. Pushing the fabric to the side, he let his fingers touch genuine skin that tingled as he made himself more familiar with her. Harry found her opening and with a gentle push, moved a finger inside.

She took a deep breath and Harry paused, panicked.

When he looked to her face, he could see that her eyes were closed, fluttering.

"Is this okay?" he asked, holding still.

Hermione swallowed rougly and pressed her cheek against his stubbled face. Kissing it tenderly, she moved her way down to his mouth and let a hand drift from her side to his to dance up his shirt and rest on his face his throat. On him, on his skin.

He knelt lower down and let more of his body weight press down against her while Hermione's hand drifted up to the hair at the nape of his neck. Harry nearly purred at her strong fingers as they massaged his scalp, and he took a deep breath and curled the finger still inside her.

She gasped and arched her back, and Harry felt a shiver course down his spine.

Harry removed his fingers from her hair and her body, putting both hands on her hips to steady her. Keeping her lying down, he took a step back from her, removing her knickers with the motion. Immediately flushed with hesitation, Hermione's hands flew up to cover herself.

Harry caught her arms with his hands, quickly clasping her wrists together and holding them above her.

"You don't need to cover yourself," he breathed. "I like seeing you like this."

Hermione's arms stopped pulling against his as he spoke, and Harry released his grip on her as he slid from the couch to the floor. With a tentative lick, Harry touched his tongue to the inside of her knee. His eyes darted upwards for sign of reaction and glittered when he saw Hermione's eyelids flutter. That's perfectly fine, he thought as he traced his fingers back under the hem of her dress that hung just in front of her entrance. Tucking his fingers just underneath the fabric, he moved his way closer to now bare skin, his tongue sliding down to her inner thigh. Looking up once more before he found the courage to act, he glanced up at Hermione's face, revelling in the fact that he was the first person to ever touch her in this way. He'd had a relationship with Ginny for nearly a year before they decided not to get engaged, and even in their most heated moments, he still found himself caught as if he were watching himself from a distance. But here and now, he could not see them both from the other side of the room no matter how badly he wished he could; the sight of her head tipped back, her shallow breaths and her slightly trembling thighs were too much for him already.

In one full movement, Harry's hands pushed her dress to her hips, grabbing her there and pulling her forwards until his eager tongue pressed against her burning skin. A shocked gasp escaped her lips, and Harry couldn't help but shudder as he breathed against her hot flesh. Giving her a moment to adjust, he licked gently, sliding two fingers back into her. He felt her tremble beneath him, this time in jolts that drove him to dive his tongue into her, lapping at her sensitive flesh and tracing a tantalizing circle inside her that pulled her chest from the couch.

Hermione's eyes snapped open as he sucked hard on a sensitive place she didn't even know existed, and in an instant her hands moved from their awkward placement above her head to his always-messy hair and she pulled and Sweet Circe, his hips jutted against his pants, his erection practically groaning. He glanced up just in time for her eyes to dip down to his, her mouth open as convulsions took her by complete surprise; legs shaking as this moment of pure ecstasy flooded her nerves. Her walls tightened against his fingers, thudding and pulsing around him as her body was overtaken by tremors that forced a gutteral sound through her strangled lips.

Harry smiled against her as she arched, hands pulling him up to her lips, eagerly tasting herself on him. Her hands flew to his trousers, belt buckle undone and his trousers unceremoniously shoved to the ground. He stepped from them and suddenly realized that this was the first time Hermione was really seeing him. Sure, they'd had some accidental run-ins with a lack of privacy when they'd been out on their own for so long on the hunt for horcruxes, but this felt different.

Harry looked down, brushing his hair from his glasses, but as he did so, Hermione shifted, moving to stand in front of him. Her dress covered her nearly completely, covering all but her knees and below.

"Harry," he heard her say, hand on his chest. "Sit back."

He let her push his chest back until his legs hit couch, and he stumbled into a sitting position, his erection surging upwards and his hands desperately working to hide it from her. She had been so shy about herself and now, now he was being the very same.

He looked up at her as she stood before him, inching closer.

Holding her hands out to grasp his, she moved his curled palms to her waist, letting him pull her closer until she straddled his legs on her knees. In this new position, Harry could feel the ghosting of her heat near his and his own yearning begged him to slide her down onto him. But this was a big deal - this was her first time and this was his best friend. Not only his best friend, but his other best friend's love. She didn't want him the way she wanted Ron. She was only doing this to avoid marrying a madman who had tried to kill her on more than one occasion. It wasn't him she wanted, it wasn't him…

Sensing his sudden self-consciousness, Hermione lowered her face to his. She pressed her cheek against his stubble and pressed a chaste kiss to his warm skin. And then another. And then another, and this one turned into a languid kiss that dripped down his neck and bit the tender flesh just below his chin. She could feel his fingers digging into her hips and felt the beginnings of bruises beneath them and instead of fear, she felt powerful and good and despite what she thought she knew, she rather liked the feel of biting down on him gently, her tongue pressing against where her teeth bit. He groaned under her, hips jutting out to nudge her in the smallest way, his erection weeping to come into contact with her. He wanted to bury himself in her and Good Godric he needed it.

"Hermione," he managed to choke out, "I-I need-"

She pressed a smiling mouth against his, enveloping his words with a smile breathing, "Yes."

He didn't need to be told twice.

Hands frantically pulled her hips until they were level to his , her body tightening as she felt the hot peak of his erection touch her centre. When he found her entrance, he pulled away from her kiss and held her neck back.

He watched her as he slowly pushed himself into her, cradling her tense body as he pushed through and buried himself in her completely. She drew a shaky breath, and when Harry looked down he could see a small smudge of blood on the inside of her thigh. He held still, gently smoothing her hair in an attempt to soothe her.

Hermione lifted a hand to grip the couch behind his head to reposition herself slightly, and Harry threw his head back as the movement stirred in him every primal desire he had been fighting to control.

"Are you alright?" he asked tentatively when she stopped moving and took a deep breath. He blinked and his eyes fixated on the blood and the way she shook ever so slightly, as if she didn't want him to know that she was hurting.

When he finally looked back to her face, he could see that the colour was all but gone, and her eyes were clenched. Her teeth were tight and gritted. She nodded to him, but didn't make any sound to indicate that she actually was.

"Have I hurt you?" He asked, a bit more panicked. The first time and he already mucked it up, and he was too worried that pulling out would cause more pain - he wanted to stay absolutely still but it was driving him insane to not move.

Lifting another hand to steady herself against him, Hermione moved, ever so slightly, but it was enough to make Harry nearly pull his hair out. Everything felt so right and he didn't want to blow her first time with his inability to continue without cumming immediately. He just needed to regain his composure… He just needed a moment to breathe… He just needed a moment to-

Hermione rolled her hips.

Harry sucked in his breath and dug his fingers into her sides, pulling at her hips and then moving with her as she pulled them back.

She straightened out atop him, and as she did she slid up, nearly off him, for just a second. The friction between them was nearly painful as both of them fought to control what ought to be awkward… what ought to feel wrong.

But Sweet Circe, when she moved like that…

She slid down slowly, adjusting to the new sensation of stretching herself out and then slid up, examining the different bundles of nerves that lit up when she slid up one way versus another.

Harry could almost laugh at the way she always managed to do research. Here she was, for the very first time, and she's researching.

He could tell that she was still painfully uncomfortable, and though he wanted to continue with every fibre of his being, he knew that they'd have more chances, and this was a trial run. This was the first time, not the last time.

And he wasn't sure if he could hold on much longer, in all honesty. The sound of her breathing alone had him teetering on an edge, and the inquisitive movements were mind-numbingly difficult to continue through. She felt too good, and the way her breathing picked up when she discovered a position that made her feel good drove him mad. Absolutely mad. The only thing that kept him hanging in there was that he absolutely didn't want to let her down on her first go.

But she moved again on top of him and he groaned deeply, ducking his forehead into her dress, against her chest. One of her hands caressed his limp hair and held him softly, the other hand stiff and white against the back of the couch cushion still.

"Hermi-" he started, and she paused.

"Is everything alright?" She asked nervously, still pale. She hadn't yet looked down but when she did she saw the smudged blood, now brown, against their skin and her eyes widened. And then her stomach tensed in the nervousness and the insides of her tensed and contracted around him.

"I can't- I'm going-" he couldn't even finish his sentence. He squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could and sucked in a large breath of air.

Perhaps it had been too long since he'd been with anybody. Maybe he wasn't the right person to be doing this with. He hadn't had sex since he had that run-in with Ginny eight months ago, and that was a mistake. But it felt easier than taking home a stranger, and they already knew each other so well. They didn't have to pretend to be something more or something else. But it was a mistake. It had been monotonous. There had been nothing left to learn about each other.

And here, there was everything to learn.

Hermione's breathing had quickened when he'd not been able to stop himself. He could feel her tensed and could hear the small squeaks she made as she tilted her head back.

They were still for a while.

And then she was leaning forward to press a soft kiss against his neck, and then against his lips where ragged breaths escaped.

"Should- should I get up?" She asked hesitantly, a nervous smile on her face. She'd done it. She'd actually done it. And she'd done it with Harry. Her very best friend.

He let out a soft chuckle. There was everything to learn for the both of them.


	8. Chapter 8

Hermione didn't sleep that night. Sure, she was tired, and she definitely tried to sleep. But she was uncomfortable. Every time she looked down, she saw a smudge of blood against her thighs no matter how many times she went to wash.

She knew she'd bleed. She knew. But she didn't expect it to keep trickling out of her even hours later, and she worried that perhaps she'd been too hard on herself. If she'd pushed too far. But she didn't. She'd taken her time, and Harry had been so gentle. So slow. So understanding.

It was enough to drive her mad. The slow feeling of growing wet, and then a constant fear that she'd get it on the couch, or on Harry, heaven forbid. He'd wake up and very well throw up all over her. And if he threw up on her, she'd throw up on him, and it would be one big mess, and he'd never be able to look her in the eyes ever again.

And the couch wasn't even big enough for the both of them! There was enough room for a full body and maybe a bit more, but she felt that perhaps it would be inappropriate to sleep so close to him. They'd shared warmth before while sleeping; he'd accidentally snuggled up against her back when they were on the run. He laid his head on her chest, and she massaged gentle circles into his hair and smiled as he whispered strange sounds in his sleep. But back then, they hadn't just slept together. They hadn't just seen each other naked or kissed. He'd never have thought to put his tongue where it had just been.

Hermione covered her face, lest Harry wake up and turn on a light and find her blushing.

Squirming to see if she had, in fact, woken him up in all her tossing and turning, she could feel the wetness against her thighs once again and slid off the couch, holding her dress up around her waist in the dark to make sure it stayed clean and unbloodied.

She winced as the light turned on in the bathroom, and she flicked her wrist on the lighting meter, turning it down until she could barely see. She turned on the faucet and rubbed against her thighs, between her legs, and held a hand to her head. She'd gotten a headache the last time she got up, and she had a nagging feeling that the only remedy would be either deep sleep or a long walk in the fresh air.

And so, she decided that perhaps she'd earned some time to herself. She found a nice blanket in her office and carried it out, covering Harry in one quiet fling of the fabric. It landed perfectly against him, and she smiled as he swaddled himself in it.

Once safely in her bed, she cradled herself in her comforter and focused on the dull ache deep in her abdomen.

Ginny'd told her how it would feel, and Hermione thought she knew what to expect. But being stretched that way… It felt so odd. Not entirely good, but not bad.

But there were times during the - the sex - that Hermione felt quite good, and she blushed a deep red when she once again remembered that she'd just actually lost her virginity.

Squirming deeper into her covers, Hermione held her hands close to her chest and wiped away a stray tear that had managed to sneak down the side of her face. It was easy to think about the ache she felt, or perhaps the embarrassment she'd feel in the morning when she ran into him in the hallway. But it was harder to think about the terror of perhaps going through this whole ordeal with Harry to just… not get pregnant.

If none of it worked out, she would marry Antonin Dolohov. She would actually marry him. She would actually be forced to live with that vile excuse for a person. They would be forced to breathe the same air, and she felt nauseous when she let herself briefly wonder what his reaction would be when he found out.

If he found out.

With everything she'd read, hopefully he'd never know they were meant to have been together. They might get to live the rest of their lives never even seeing each other ever again.

But what if none of it worked out?

After what she'd just felt, experienced, done, she couldn't imagine any of that being done in hatred or fear. Hermione thought back to the files she and Harry had gone through. It was obvious that children were expected from the matches.

She didn't want to wonder if she would get pregnant with Dolohov in the future. It was disgusting, and she would kill herself long before she let herself give birth to a child from him.

Hermione's eyes fixated on the clock in her room. It was 3:13 am, and she'd not slept a wink.

She stood up, put on a pair of warm socks, and crept back out to her foyer. As she passed the living room, she caught a view of Harry sleeping, and her throat constricted just a bit. His blanket was pushed down below his feet, and his whole body was exposed to the cool air.

Stifling an embarrassed smile, Hermione moved to stand over him.

She leaned down to let a gentle hand caress his face before pulling the blanket up to cover him. His eyelids flickered, and she held onto her breath, hoping that he wouldn't wake up.

When he settled a bit more, she straightened herself and slipped on a warm pair of boots and a coat, leaving her flat and locking it behind her.

Harry awoke quietly and slowly.

It was still early in the morning, and the sun hadn't fully risen.

He was laying on Hermione's awful couch, and a soft blanket was draped over him. Looking around lazily, he spotted his glasses on the coffee table and leaned over to pick them up.

That is when two things happened in quick succession. The first was that he noticed his own trousers on the floor beside the couch, and the second was that he could all of a sudden feel the blanket against his skin. All of his skin. Particularly, a tender patch of skin located in a very specific place.

Balking, Harry sat up quickly and tried his best to cover himself with the blanket as he moved. But as his breathing evened out and the memories of the night before rushed through him, he realized a distinct lack of witch.

He hurriedly dressed and looked about Hermione's flat.

She wasn't in her bedroom, where he first checked by softly knocking on the door. It swung open to a bed that looked like she'd just crawled out of it, and Harry grumbled under his breath. He checked the open bathroom, the kitchen, the stairs outside her flat, and even took a long look inside her office. But she wasn't there, and he couldn't fathom where she'd gone. For heaven's sake, the clock blinked a repetitive 4:53 am and she was gone.

Harry sighed and trudged into back to the living room, plopping on the couch with a sigh, head hanging and shoulders slouched.

He'd hurt her, hadn't he? He'd been too rough. Too much. He'd done exactly what Ginny told him not to do, and Hermione just ran.

He sat back on the couch and touched a careful hand to the worn fabric. It really was an awful couch. Clean, but it had a strange smell attached to it. He tilted his head into the back of it and took a deep inhale. It smelled a bit like Hermione, but probably more like what Hermione had grown up in. Her house when she was a child probably smelled strong enough to imprint forever on the couch.

That was probably one of the reasons she clung to it so much.

Her parents still didn't have all their memories back. Apparently they never would. They had only a foggy recollection of her youth and most of that seemed pretty dodgy. Like they'd been tricked into remembering the pictures she laid out in front of them.

Harry shifted and noticed a glint of soft pink between the cushions and moved over to fish the pair of knickers out from the couch.

His jaw clenched as he pulled them apart, feeling the faintly sticky residue on them.

The sound of the door opening caught him by surprise, and he stood quickly, trying to look normal, but when Hermione shook her boots off and walked into the living room, she regarded him coolly.

"Why do you have my knickers?" she asked, regarding him skeptically as she removed her coat. She was still wearing the same dress as last night, indicating that she hadn't changed before she left. Her legs from where her boots ended and her dress began looked pale and pink at the same time, and Harry fought the urge to cup his hands around them to warm them up.

Harry's eyes widened as he remembered what she asked and that he was, indeed, holding onto a pair of pink knickers...

"Oh," he started, mouth hanging open. "I just found them. I was going to put them in the hamper, but I couldn't find it."

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"You mean the one in the bathroom?"

Harry looked down and realized he was still holding them. Sucking in his breath, he squeezed his eyes shut and tossed them to her, not thinking properly.

Hermione watched as they fell several feet away from her and smiled lightly as he tried to fit his hands into his back pockets.

"It's fine, Harry. Don't worry about it."

Harry sighed in relief and gave her a shy laugh, opening his eyes hesitantly.

"Where did you go this morning?" He asked, sitting back down on the couch while she disappeared into the kitchen. He could hear mugs being shuffled around and water running.

"Oh, you know. I needed some air."

"Do you do that frequently?"

"Not every morning, but it helps with my headaches." She leaned against the door frame as the kettle sat on the burner.

Harry paused. "You get headaches?"

Hermione looked at him strangely. "Ever since Malfoy Manor."

Harry looked away for a moment and found himself staring at the couch again.

"You never told me about—"

"They're not something I care to talk about."

"Are they bad?"

"They feel like my head's cracking open." She said solemnly.

Harry blinked slowly. He hadn't known her to not disclose important information. He didn't like that she'd been keeping something like that from him.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Hermione huffed and was suddenly behind the wall again, out of his view.

"I didn't—Harry, it doesn't change who I am. I'm the same person."

"Well, of course you are, but—"

"But nothing. They're just headaches. They're nothing."

"If you have to go out walking alone in the morning then it's obviously not nothing, 'Mione." He pressed, and there was a stomach-dropping silence before the telltale bubbling whistle started to scream from the kettle.

"So what if I go out walking? There's no real danger out there. It's not like I'm going to get mugged."

"Muggles aren't the only people to be scared of. Merlin. Especially now, especially knowing what you know, wouldn't it make sense to stay safe? To stay inside?"

She came from behind the door with a tray of two mugs and a glass teapot. It was clear, and he could see the honey and tea bag melt into the water, growing hazy. It looked like a pensieve would look if you were staring at it from the side.

She set the tray down on the coffee table and sat in a wicker chair across from him.

"What's going on, Harry? Why—" She gestured to the air, "why all of this? It's just walking."

Harry leaned forward, forearms on his knees. "It isn't safe—"

"No. Why do you not trust me to take care of myself all of a sudden?"

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. This was definitely not the way he wanted this morning to go. He hadn't really expected much, but he definitely thought that there would be laughter, maybe even some snogging. Not what seemed to be turning into a fight.

"Good Godric, I know you can but it just isn't safe."

"You see, this is why I didn't tell you about the headaches. You just—no." Hermione chewed the inside of her cheek and pinched her lips together. Harry could tell she had words to say but also knew this look too well. Her words were likely not nice.

"Go on, then. Say it. I just what?" His voice sounded harsher than he intended. He winced at his tone, but Hermione wasn't even looking at him. She was sitting with her eyes closed and her hands cupping her temples.

"You—" she paused, searching for the right words. Her voice sounded much softer as she spoke now. "You can't take care of me, Harry."

He looked at her incredulously. "Says who?"

"Says me," she emphasized, eyes searching his to make him understand.

"But—" he countered.

"But nothing."

"Listen," he started, his voice giving way to the familiar break it got when he was getting wound up. "I didn't know where you were. I didn't know if I'd hurt you, or if you were angry, or if you were feeling guilty, or if—"

"Excuse me?" She asked, crossing her arms. "What am I guilty of?"

Harry looked at her sheepishly, wishing he hadn't as soon as he saw how she was looking back at him. He shivered, cold from her icy glare.

"Nothing—"

Hermione dropped her head back, exasperated. "Oh, but if you thought I would've run off in a fit of guilt then it's obviously not nothing, huh?"

"I—what?"

"You think I'm some awful person now, don't you? A terrible girlfriend?"

Harry's eyes widened. "No, that's not what I meant—"

"Then what did you mean? What else do I have to feel guilty for? Other than sleeping with my best friend behind my boyfriend's back, of course."

Harry's brows drew together. "'Mione, you're the one that instigated a DMLE heist and broke into Lord Greengrass' office…" His lips parted a bit, trying to find some way this could turn out well for him. From his perspective, he had two choices. He could take a breath and leave to let her cool off, or he could stay and try to smooth everything over.

Letting her cool off was tempting—so tempting—but he promised her he'd never leave. He promised he'd be there for her, and this felt like some kind of reaction to what they'd done. A reaction to liking it, perhaps. He hoped that she liked it...

"Putting everything we did last night aside, you're guilty of at least a few things." He said, deciding his route. "In fact, you're the most guilty person in this whole flat, and that's saying something."

"Yeah?" She asked, staring at him inquisitively. She wasn't yet happy, but she wasn't as harsh as she'd been.

"Oh yeah. And I've done some dodgy things as an Auror. Crazy things."

"Like what?"

"Well, I stole a handful of mints from Terry Boot about a month ago, and I tripped an old lady as she was crossing a street."

"Did you, now?"

"Definitely," he tried to keep his tone as morose as possible. "And I wasn't going to tell you, but I might be the reason why Gringott's has that new policy against allowing Aurors into their winter talent show."

"Wow," she murmured, still leaning back. "And I'm still the worst one in the flat…"

"Yeah, and you're in big trouble."

Hermione's eyes pinched at the sides, and Harry took a deep breath.

"Going to arrest me then, huh?"

Harry's face dropped down into his arms and he let himself smile just a bit, groaning quietly. He felt almost triumphant, even if she wasn't entirely feeling better.

"I don't think there's a thing on this Earth I could do to you if you didn't want me to do them in the first place."

"You're damn right about that," she started, leaning over to pour tea into one of the mugs. "So I think we can both agree that a small walk really isn't hurting anybody." She passed the mug to him, and he took it with grateful hands. It was warm against his skin, almost too hot, and he breathed in the steam that wafted from the top.

Harry lifted a hand to his forehead and rolled his eyes.

"I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"Like a blind mountain troll." Hermione didn't smile. Her words fell flat and though she tried to make her face look more uplifted, less bleak, she still looked like she was holding her tongue in place in her mouth. It was the look she got when she was trying not to cry.

"'Mi, seriously," he spoke quietly. "You're good. You're going to be alright, I can feel it."

Without a word, Hermione stood from her chair, walking over to stand in front of him. She bent over a bit and touched his hair gently with her fingers.

As she drifted her nails down to his shoulders, Harry suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Her fingers trailed down his arm and when they got to his wrist, they curled around him and pulled him to stand in front of her.

He stood a head taller than her, despite her constantly trying to stand on her toes around him. He expected her to raise herself like she'd done last night, but instead, she took a step away from him, still holding onto his wrist, and that melted into her holding his hand, then a couple fingers.

She walked backward, slowly, and drew him toward the door to her bedroom that still hung open from when he'd searched the flat for her.

"I don't know if this is okay to ask," she started, "but the couch is awfully small for the two of us. How about a real nap?"

Harry felt his mouth twitch and tried to keep his lips from turning into one giant grin.

"Are you sure you'd like me to stay?"

Hermione nodded to him. "It's just been a stressful time. Is that alright?"

Harry smiled. "Why would that not be okay to ask? We've shared beds before, dummy."

"But we've never shared a bed after doing, you know." She looked uncomfortable for a moment before giggling quietly, and Harry felt profound relief at the sound. She sat down against the mess of covers and let go of his fingers to pull the duvet up against her. It wasn't even square on the bed anymore but haphazardly strewn.

"I'm sure we can manage to lie down next to each other, but only on one condition."

"What's that?" she asked, squirming to fit her body into the tangle of covers, finding a pillow along the way and pulling it to her.

"You can't steal all the bloody covers," he responded, and he laughed at her face as it pouted at him.

"But I'm cold!" she said loudly, and Harry battled blankets around to secure himself next to her.

"Then I'll warm you up." He put his hands against her and found her curled up. He could feel her legs and the sharp chill they carried. He rearranged himself to cup both hands around one of the legs and rubbed against her skin, trying to warm her, but she only laughed.

"That tickles, Harry, stop it!" she squealed, back arching against the mattress.

"Fine," he resigned, smiling. "But I'll grab you a pair of trousers. You're frigid, and I won't have you getting sick. Especially not now. We're going to be busy people, don't you think?"

"Harry, I—" she paused, reaching to grab his shoulder. She held him in place for a moment, and her sudden nervousness tripped an alarm for Harry.

"Did I overstep just then?" He asked, uncomfortable.

Her eyes widened as she realized how she must have sounded. "No! You didn't at all. I just had a question, but I'm sure I could ask Ginny later. It's not important."

Harry let out a loud laugh. "You can ask me, Hermione. Ginny's smart, but think about it. She's an athlete, and they're notoriously dumb. Remember Krum?"

Hermione smiled and pushed his shoulder.

"You're an athlete too, dumbass," she giggled.

"Fine, then ask away and if I don't know the answer, feel free to hold it over me for the rest of my no-good life."

She took a deep breath.

"When will it not hurt?" she asked, and she could feel her cheeks turning bright red.

Harry's eyes tried not to widen, and they tried not to scrunch together. He tried to appear absolutely cool, but he suddenly wished she'd asked Ginny and not him.

"I've heard that it stops hurting after a few times." He spoke hesitantly as if trying to memorize facts before a test. "But I'm not a girl, and I don't know. It's different for everybody, right?"

"How long did it take with Ginny?"

Harry grimaced. "Probably the first month. She was away for training so frequently that it just took longer to get used to. But we took our time, and she got to really enjoying it after that."

"We don't really have a month to just take our time, do we?"

Harry looked at her carefully; at the freckles across her face so light that he could hardly see them. She wore makeup to cover them, even though she had clear skin. She said the freckles looked too much like blackheads.

"It'll take a bit of getting used to, but the more we try, the less it'll hurt. As long as you keep me updated with how things are feeling, we'll be fine. We'll make it as easy as we can."

Hermione nodded, and suddenly Harry was gone, jumping up to toss her closet door open. It made a loud rumble as it rolled open, and she rolled her eyes as he opened the different drawers of her dresser until he found where her pajamas were stored.

He picked through, and Hermione's blushing grew more intense as he lifted a silky blue nightgown from the drawer, holding it up on a finger.

"Now this," he began, "is interesting. I didn't know you to be so luxurious, Hermione!" His voice was playful, and his hair flopped on his head so freely that Hermione laughed not only at his words but at just how ridiculous he looked.

"It was actually a very practical deal if you'd believe that!"

"What was the occasion!" he called, still rifling through the drawer.

"Boxing day! Sixty percent off!"

"Well, that's a very practical deal indeed. But for now, you're cold. So… not really practical at the moment." he turned around to face her, holding out a large pair of sweatpants. They were ten years old, and about four sizes too big. They looked ridiculous, but he tossed them toward her. Hermione laughed at him and held up her hands.

She caught them with a soft thump, and squirmed under the covers to pull them up over her waist.

Harry looked at the clock briefly and felt a fleeting worry that he'd been taking so much time away from work. He thought about the promotion he'd been gunning for and felt a twinge of guilt that he'd been away for so long.

No matter, he decided.

Work was a secondary concern.

Hermione was his first.

He rubbed his eyes and removed his glasses, falling onto the bed and passing them to Hermione, who plunked them down on her bedside table.

"Must I reconstruct the wall of China again?" Harry laughed, referring to the last time they shared a bed. It had been probably only a few months before. He was too drunk to apparate, and Ron threw a hissy fit about her not forcing him onto the couch. When he woke up the next morning, so hungover that he couldn't even reach the sobering potion on the table beside him, he found a line of pillows separating the two of them.

"I think we can forego the construction for now."

"I am shocked, where's the culture?"

"Under my head and under my knees," she laughed.

"Selfish as always, but smart. You've got no permits." Harry chastised, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with a warmth in her chest that despite everything, she was still somehow here, and she was still somehow okay.

Even if things didn't work out for her, she could remember moments like this.


	9. Chapter 9

"Hermione!" Kingsley boomed, waving his hand high to get her attention as he entered the dimly lit diner.

She smiled and stood to meet him, offering him the chair across from her. He took a moment to shed the muggle raincoat and splattered rain all across the linoleum table she'd arranged for them.

He gave her a large smile and a firm handshake, clasping her hand tightly.

"What can I do for you today?" He asked, sitting down and pulling his briefcase onto his lap.

"Cutting straight to the chase, I see," Hermione sighed, relieved that he wouldn't be trailing around for a half hour about nothing.

"I'm certain you wouldn't have sent a whole flock of owls if it wasn't important," he replied, and a pang of annoyance flickered in his eyes. Hermione cringed. She didn't like disappointing people, especially not her superiors, even if they were potentially setting her up for murder. It was just in her nature to want to please.

"Well," she started, "I believe I'm owed an update on Ron's search?" Her thumbs fiddled with each other as she looked at him expectantly.

Kingsley nodded, lips thinning against each other.

"Yes, Hermione, about that…" he paused, shifting uncomfortably. "We've got really talented people out looking for him. Very talented. But-"

"But nobody's found him. Nobody's brought him home." She finished for him, looking to him for confirmation.

Kinglsey nodded slowly.

"I think if Harry were willing to help look for him-"

"Kings, you and I both know he can't leave. McLaggen's been out sick for days now, and there's nobody else who knows how to run things down at the station. There'd be anarchy if he were to leave as well." She paused for a moment as a muggle walked by. Both Hermione and Kingsley watched her carefully until she was out of earshot. "And what if Ron's been taken? Worse, what if he's been hurt? Sending Harry might be playing into a trap."

McLaggen had fallen ill only a day after her and Harry's… time together… and she gulped at the reminder. Well, at the reminder of something else, that reminded her of that night. A rosy flush coloured her face as she tried to focus on Kingsley, who had sat back in the wirey metal chair. It was uneven and he shifted on it a few times before sighing deeply.

"Is there a menu for this place?" He asked finally, drawing Hermione back from thinking about how warm Harry's skin was when it touched hers.

"Excuse me?" she asked, peering at him.

He looked around, catching the eye of a waitress behind the bar.

"When you asked to meet over lunch, I canceled my brunch date. This was very last minute, Hermione, and I'm terribly hungry."

The waitress waddled from behind the bar counter, and Hermione felt an internal twinge as she saw her approaching.

"Hi there," the girl said sweetly. "How can I help you today?"

"A menu?" Hermione asked hurriedly, eager to speak privately with the minister. That is, after all, why she requested a muggle diner.

"And a pot of tea?" Kingsley added, smiling to the girl. "How far along are you?"

"Just about 8 months," she smiled, putting a hand to her protruding belly. "A menu and a pot of tea coming right up."

Hermione leaned back in her chair and watched Kinsgley fiddle with a bottle of ketchup as the waitress left, eyeing him carefully.

"You had a brunch date?" She asked, finally comfortable with the silence.

"Oh yes, but enough about me. Tell me what's so urgent that it couldn't wait until Monday."

Hermione groaned. A half hour of trailing around nothing, it was.

"Kings, it's been two weeks since you sent out the search warrant. It's been one week since you sent aurors from our own ministry to go looking for him. He's still gone, and nobody's telling me what's going on. It's barbaric and-"

"Searching across borders can be awfully difficult, you know this. What I can promise you is that he's alive and that he'll turn up soon."

"How can you be sure?" Hermione asked, fingers pressing against the table.

Kingsley looked down at his briefcase, still sitting in his lap.

"You'll have to trust me on this, Hermione. All I can disclose is that he is alive and that he will have to come home sooner rather than later."

He watched Hermione carefully, eyes searching her posture, her body language, her breathing… She could see him calculating her every movement, every twitch. She raised a hand to rest on her stomach, watching his eyes follow her hand.

"I assumed this meeting would be about the career switch you've been interested in? Or have you changed your mind?" Kingsley asked hopefully.

Hermione shook her head.

"I've been thinking about your situation," he meandered, casually drawing his wand from inside his sleeve and casting a charm on the chair's wobbling leg. "I feel terrible about my reaction when you proposed leaving your position. You came to me as a friend, stressed and worried about Ronald and I react by treating you as an employee rather than a chum."

Hermione huffed, folding her arms and swinging a foot out under the table to knock against the pole holding it up. She knew it must look juvenile to all who might see her from a distance, but she just felt like moving and in her seat, swinging her feet seemed to be the only option that wouldn't disrupt a potential confession.

"I hope you still see me as a friend, Hermione," he pressed. "I really do. The fact of the matter is that I wasn't supportive, but I'd like to be. I can't permit you to leave to go to America as you were hoping for, but I've spoken to Mirthwood and he's willing to meet with you. I know you wanted to be on top of the change, but his retirement is coming up, and I'm sure it'll look better if you've been trained by him before you take over. How does that sound?"

"Is this a formal job offer?" Hermione asked tentatively, her heart rate picking up.

"Not by any stretch of the imagination. But Mirthwood's a good man, and if you bring him some of your ideas, I'm sure he'll be ecstatic to hear about your thoughts."

"How do you know I have any ideas to bring to him in the first place?"

"Please," Kingsley laughed. "You're Hermione Granger! You've got ideas on everything! It's one of my favourite things about you!"

"Excuse me," the waitress reappeared with two menus and tea. She fiddled about with Kingsley as he tried to help her place everything, and Hermione had to close her eyes to shut out the thumping of blood in her ears. It reverberated through her body and she suddenly felt too cold. Like there was a chill in her bones that she couldn't shake, and it felt like it was biting at her ankles, at her wrists, at the lump in her throat.

"For you, sir?" the waitress asked, and She could vaguely hear Kingsley's voice as it laughed with the waitress, asking for a plate of fish and chips.

"For you, ma'am?"

"Perhaps you'll need to give her a moment," Kinsgely murmured. "She's been feeling a bit under the weather recently."

The waitress nodded her head and swiveled on her foot, leaving Kingsley to pour two cups, pushing one to Hermione. She clasped her hands around the cup and took a deep breath when the warmth lit through her skin.

"I bet that if I had Mirthwood here right now as a surprise, you'd know exactly what changes you'd like to make. Go on, tell me a few of them so I can get excited about this as well."

"Well," Hermione started, "I think it would be smart to hire on an actual staff-"

"Is that possible with the budget?" Kingsley interrupted, and Hermione's face fell flat.

She could feel the familiar sarcastic venom tipping her tongue before she even opened her mouth.

"You do realize that I haven't even spoken with Mirthwood yet? I know literally nothing, and you're not even letting me go to school to learn more about what I hope to be doing with the department."

"Ah, yes." He nodded. "My apologies. Go on…"

"I'd hire an actual staff, given the budget," Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Clean up the work areas. Make it a more inviting place. Right now it's so dingy and outdated that I doubt anybody knows how to actually get there. I'd want a full wall of resources for people, and-"

"Well," Kingsley interrupted again. "Since we're already here, and there's nothing more I can tell you about Ronald's situation, how about we just have lunch together as friends?"

Looking up, Hermione wondered if she'd just heard him correctly. Had he even been listening to her? What in seven hells was wrong with him?

The waitress returned with a steaming plate of fish and chips.

"That was excellent!" Kingsley crowed, his grin wide and cheerful. He looked up to Hermione and gave her a friendly look, and Hermione had to remind herself to blink as her eyes dried from staring at him inquisitively.

The waitress giggled and pulled out her notepad and pencil. "The cook's super fast."

When the waitress turned her attention to Hermione, she couldn't even put words together enough to understand the question she'd just been asked. Here Kingsley was, and though he looked and sounded the same, she couldn't figure out what was so fundamentally wrong with him.

The waitress spoke again, and Hermione could pick out a few words from the rambling question.

What did she want?

What did she want?

Was there anything she really wanted anymore?

In a whole life of living and dreaming and wishing and hoping, what had Hermione actually wanted?

She wanted to love. She wanted information. She wanted to learn. She wanted to teach herself how to skate. She wanted to teach herself French and Mandarin and she wanted to visit Iceland and Canada and Patagonia. She had a whole list of places she wanted to go to.

She wondered if Ron would still be missing if she could speak French and went to France to look for him.

She wondered if his travels had taken him through France in the first place.

She wondered if she'd ever go to France in the future.

Kingsley resumed speaking, his low tenor soothing her squirreling nerves, but it sounded more like background music than actual words and ideas.

She wanted to play chess with Bill one day. She wanted to duel Fleur like she'd promised she would. She wanted to be there for her friends. She wanted happiness and justice for her colleagues and her associates and her peers. She wanted to help the centaur herd near Hogwarts. She wanted to protect the stray sods. She wanted to protect herself.

Had she ever truly wanted to be married?

Had she ever truly cared about having kids?

If she weren't dating a man who wanted six, would she even want one? If she weren't trying to get pregnant to save herself from a murderous arsehole, would she have ever tried?

If that future wasn't what she wanted, and neither was the future with Dolohov, then no matter what, she'd be living a life she didn't want. She'd be living a life she didn't ask for.

Maybe there wasn't a future that she wanted to be a part of in the first place.

Maybe there wouldn't be-

Hermione held a hand to her mouth as she gagged loudly, an ungodly noise shocking her and startling Kingsley. Standing up quickly, Hermione's stomach heaved and suddenly the waitress was pulling her into the washroom and over a toilet.

"There, there" she murmured, rubbing Hermione's back and holding her messy hair back as she heaved out her stomach into the bowl. "You're alright, sweetheart."

"What's going on in there?" Kingsley yelled, knocking on the door, his panicked voice getting the attention of the other people in the diner. Some stood to see better what was going on, a couple ladies even rushed into the washroom.

"I'm a nurse," one of them said as she stood over Hermione, fighting to grab hold of her wrist as she vomited into the toilet bowl. "Have you eaten anything today that might have-"

Hermione sagged forward and the whole world spun out beneath her.

Harry sat back in his chair and groaned.

There was too much paperwork to do and he didn't have the attention span to get it done all in one go. Already he'd taken two breaks and lunch, and he'd only set himself to the paperwork a few hours before.

He pulled the stack closer to him and forced himself to read the first paragraph. Harry groaned again, loudly, and dropped his head onto it.

"Terry!" He called out, face still against the paper.

Terry jumped and poked his head around the open door to Harry's office, his eyes large. Harry could be loud sometimes, and it was usually McLaggen that yelled at him, but this week Harry was reading through Terry's files.

"Yeah, Potter?" He slipped himself inside and took a seat in the chair across from Harry's. The desk was large, though his office was not, and there was just enough room for Harry to lay out the contents of seven different files Terry'd submitted.

"What in Godric's grave is this shite?"

"Well, you see, my cat had kittens and-"

"Cut the crap, Boot. These don't make any sense."

Terry looked at the papers and pulled the closest to him, staring at it carefully. A look of confusion etched onto his face.

"Wait, Harry. This doesn't look like my writing. Are you sure these are the right reports?"

"What are you on about?"

"I'm just saying, these aren't mine. I think we've got someone mucking up our reports - no, hear me out. These are-"

"Potter," Andrew Anglehorn pushed the door open. "Ginny keeps calling on the phone you set up? Says there's some kind of emergency at the Burrow-"

"Thank Salazar," Terry whispered, jumping to his feet and hurrying out of the room.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, collecting the reports and fitting them into his filing cabinet. He'd have to speak with McLaggen when he came back about the trash Terry's reports were spewing.

"I'm not sure, but she said that Minister Shacklebolt just left-"

Harry pushed past Andrew with a wave and grabbed his jacket, walking quickly toward the closest floo.

With everything going on, unexpected visits from a potential traitor topped his list of things to worry about.

It was only minutes and he was stepping out of the fireplace in the Burrow, with George leaning back against one of the couches staring at him. Possibly even waiting for him.

"They're upstairs," he said, standing up to stand tall over Harry. "Wait," George murmured as Harry took a step toward the staircase.

"What happened?" Harry asked as George approached him.

Instead of responding, George bent over at the waist and gave a long hug to Harry. Harry's eyes started to pinch, and he tapped George's shoulder.

"What's going on?" He asked again, worry setting deeper into his skin, hitting his stomach. He felt nauseous.

"It's Hermione," he started. "Got sick out at lunch with Kingsley and he brought her to mum."

Harry's eyes widened and he took another step toward the stairs. George held out and arm and stopped him again.

"Just wait with me a moment," he said solemnly. "She vomited all over herself. Gin and mum are probably getting her cleaned up now. And you know…" he stood uncomfortably, dropping his arm to his side so he could stuff both hands in his pockets. "Privacy… All that"

Harry nodded, mouth still open.

"Listen," he started, trying to figure out how to speak to his friend. "I'm sorry about-"

George brushed him off with a look, and nodded his head toward the couch he'd been on. Harry sat down beside him and they just looked at each other for a moment.

"Mum will probably go batty when she sees you, but I just wanted to ask you how you're faring."

Harry pursed his lips.

"Doing a lot better than 'Mione, that's for sure. And better than Ron, I bet."

George rolled his eyes. "Ron's fine. That's something Kings made sure to let us know before he dropped her off."

Harry sat up straight, alert. "What did he say?"

George picked up a ball of yarn from a basket beside the couch and tossed it up into the air.

"Just that he knows Ron's alive, and he'll be home soon. Guessing from what Hermione sent us in her last update, the 'shock and collar' idea might be enough for him to know how people are doing."

Harry thought about it. It would make sense if… he sat back and groaned for the billionth time that day and covered his face with his hands. Kingsley could bring Ron home whenever he wanted if their theories were correct.

"Harry?" Ginny called from the top of the stairs.

"Guess you're allowed up now." George shifted. Leaning back, he grabbed a glass of water and handed it to him. "Take that up to her?"

Harry took it with a small thanks and called up the stairs. Molly, Ginny and Hermione were all in Ron's room, with Hermione lying in his bed, pale and sallow. Harry's throat constricted a bit when he saw her, but Molly stood and held out both her arms for a hug.

Ginny slipped out of the room and hurried to her own down the hall while Molly patted Hermione's hair one last time before waddling down the narrow stairs.

On the first floor, Harry could hear her turn the corner to George and an undoubted mess of yarn strewn across the living room.

"So?" Harry said aloud after they'd been alone for a few minutes and the argument downstairs quieted.

"So what?" Hermione responded, pulling the covers against her. He could hardly see her face, what with all the wet hair and knitted blankets.

"You were sick?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Are you- uh - did we-"

"Harry, it's too early to tell anything yet. The earliest I could possibly be is just under a week." She peeked her chin over the blankets, and Harry reached over to push some of the hair from her face.

"But maybe you are and this-"

"Harry," she breathed softly, "it's too early to tell. I'm alright, just a bit overwhelmed. Nothing I can't manage."

"I could go get you a test, though. What if-"

"It's been less than a week," she reiterated, her voice cracking. She slid a hand out from the covers and held it out to him. He took it, and winced. She was so cold.

"But-"

"Harry," Hermione said sternly, trying to close her hand around his, but she was still wet and clammy, and didn't do much more than brush her skin against his. "It's too soon to have any pregnancy symptoms. Too early for muggles, and too early for witches."

"Okay but hear me out. I go grab a test, you take it, maybe you're pregnant. Maybe you're not. What if you don't know you're pregnant and start eating sushi? Or you go out drinking?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "When was the last time I went out drinking?"

"I happen to know the exact date, and it was a long time ago. Pretty embarrassing, if you ask me," he smiled, looking down to rifle through his pockets with one hand.

"Some friend you are, I don't even like sushi."

"You don't like pickles either but apparently those are all the rage for insufferable pregnant ladies- hey! Don't smack me!" Harry yelled after feeling a firm thwack to the head.

"Don't forget that you're the one who gets to be the one suffering, not me." She smiled at him, but her head still felt dizzy and heavy.

"Will you take the test?" He asked again when she looked to have seriously considered it.

"Fine," she conceded, "but on one condition."

Harry rolled his eyes, but nodded.

"It obviously can't be a spell. Medical spells are traced too easily and I've caught your paranoia.

And obviously I don't want you making it."

"You're mad, I did better than you in potions that one year, remember that?"

"Not at all. You're rubbish at potions and unless you somehow held onto Snape's mucked up book, I don't want you making anything that I'm going to put in my body - no, don't laugh, I didn't mean it that way!"

"Fine, I won't make it. But I want to know what it says, yeah?"

Hermione nodded to him, pulled her hand from his and back into the sheets. They still smelled like Ron, and a pit stuck against her stomach when she thought about him. He was alive, and she wasn't sure how she was going to explain all of this to him when he got back. And wouldn't it have made more sense to go looking for him? To go searching and get pregnant by him?

There was still time to do that, wasn't there?

And then she felt angry, a familiar flame igniting the lump. Why was he still gone? If he wasn't dead, then where was he?

Harry stood, and touched her hair gently before turning to leave the room.

Looking down the hall, Harry turned from the stairs and instead walked toward Ginny's room.

Kocking on her door lightly, the door swung open slightly. He pushed it open a hair further and poked his head in, and found himself staring directly at Gin, her face pale and patchy.

As if she'd just been crying.

"Is she-"

"Too early to tell, apparently." Harry huffed, and sat down on the little chair next to her desk.

"Come on in, I guess," Ginny muttered, standing to close the door behind him.

Signed posters of quidditch players lined the walls and Harry felt an uncomfortable twinge when he noticed the poster of Oliver Wood's team had been taken down.

"Well, my fingers are crossed for you two." Her voice sounded strained, both frustrated and just… Sad. She leaned back down onto her bed and watched him fiddle with the chair's patchy fabric, pulling strings and unraveling parts until the inside was visible.

"Why?" He asked, his voice shaky. "Why is this so easy for you?"

He regretted his words instantly, but they'd already been heard and she was already contemplating them.

"What I mean," he rambled, "is that we hadn't spoken about anything heavier than grocery shopping for months and now all we talk about is who's getting married, and how I'm going to try to get our mutual friend pregnant."

Ginny laid her hands down on her hip bones. "We were friends before we ever fell for each other. We're friends after, too? We're still friends?"

Harry looked at her in the eyes and nodded, unsmiling. "Yeah, we're still friends."

"I'm glad you two are here," she said after a moment of dead silence."Mum's happy to take care of Hermione. She just wants to take care of her. Thinks of her as a daughter. She thinks the same of you too, you know."

"Your mum thinks of me as a daughter?" Harry asked, a hint of a smile under his lips.

"Prat," Ginny laughed. "She thinks of you as a son."

"I think of her as a mother. You can tell her I said that, but I'm sure she already knows."

"Ah, she knows. She'll never forgive you for not being her real son-in-law, but that's just because she likes you so much."

Harry winced. "She isn't giving you a hard time about us breaking up, is she? It's been so long, and-"

"She thinks we broke up because something happened. She thinks I did something to you, or said something mean, or-"

"But you didn't! Neither of us did anything wrong, we just-"

"We just weren't doing anything completely right. It's fine, Harry. I can take care of mum on my own."

Harry nodded, pulling at the strings of the seat again.

"Harry?" Ginny asked, pulling his attention from his apparent need to destroy her furniture. "Did you just come in to ruin my things or was there something you wanted?"

Harry felt his face go red.

Or perhaps it went white, he wasn't sure, but it did something.

"I-uh-" he stuttered. "Nothing."

Ginny raised an eyebrow.

"Spit it out," she pressed, and Harry's eyes darted toward the small drawer at the bottom of her dresser. Following his eyes, Ginny looked back to Harry with an incredulous look on her face.

"I was just wondering, or rather Hermione was wondering if-"

"Hermione has no idea that I have spare pregnancy tests," Ginny chastised, a smile ghosting across her lips.

Harry's eyes darted to the ceiling, to anywhere but his ex-girlfriend and the drawer she stuffed with pregnancy test potions two years earlier after they'd had a scare.

"Well, alright," he conceded, "I was wondering, then, if you'd be able to give one to her?"

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Go downstairs, Harry. Mum made lunch and she'll kill you if you don't eat anything."

Harry smiled thinly, grateful, and stood from his chair, briefly waiting by the door to watch Ginny as she leaned over, back to him. She knelt down to open the drawer, which was both surprisingly and unsurprisingly noticeably less full than it had been the last time he saw it open.

Harry sat back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. It was calming to not see, and he felt a comfortable quiet settle over him. He was tired of Terry's shit reports, and he was annoyed by Ron's disappearance. Where was he? His assignment should have had him back in no time. If he wasn't being held without his will, and Harry prayed that he wasn't, then he was causing pain and heartache all for the sake of spite and jealousy. All for a jagged chance that distance makes the heart grow fonder. What, was he hoping that he'd come back and that Hermione would run to him, so thankful for him to be back and safe and alive that she'd strip her clothes off right there and then and fuck him on the floor in all the hurry? Was he expecting to break up with her when he came back?

There was an unexpected flare in him when he asked himself if there was a chance that Ron wasn't planning on staying with Hermione. He wasn't sure, though, if this unexpected flare was hopeful or sorrowful. Hermione would be heartbroken, wouldn't she?

But would Harry be?

If they weren't together, didn't that make more sense?

More sense for who. Harry chastised himself for thinking of his best friends in such a way. It was unfair, and he couldn't think like that. He was a sperm donor. Nothing else. Just because there was a chance that Ron and Hermione might not work out, that didn't mean that him and Hermione would. They were friends. Nothing more.

He could still hear Terry and Andrew bickering outside in the bullpen, even after yelling at them to quiet down several times over the past hour.

Pulling out a bottle of Daisyroot Draught, a gift from Neville for helping him out with a delinquent student, he poured himself a glass and took a deep swig. It felt like honey going down, but he could feel the warmth flutter against his stomach.

Just then, Terry and Andrew settled down, and steps toward the door had him hurrying to hide the alcohol from sight, placing it by his ankles and downing the rest of his glass in one gulp.

"What is it?" He called out before a faint knocking sounded, and Harry jumped up in recognition of the telltale rapping pattern. "Come in, I'm just in here."

Opening the door slowly, Hermione looked at Harry inquisitively, a smile tugging at his inwardly cringing face.

"Strange," she said quietly, lightly. "I didn't expect to see you here."

Harry rolled his eyes and gestured to the chair opposite him.

Hermione remained standing though, and Harry actually looked at her. She was wearing her long coat, the professional looking one she wore to meetings. He guessed it made sense, since she met with Kingsley earlier before she got sick, but-

"Oh, did you-"

"I'm not pregnant." She said even quieter, looked down at her thumbs. She was holding a coffee cup, presumably picked up from a cafe on the way. She must have walked, and Harry felt a flicker of annoyance. It had just been raining, and she'd just been so ill that the minister for magic delivered her not to her home, but to someone who could take care of her.

Harry gestured again to the chair across from him, but she shook her head.

"You're busy," she explained, "I just needed to tell you-"

Harry moved to stand in front of her just in time for her to shiver and lose her balance. It rocked through her and he must have looked worried, because she brushed him off and turned to leave, but he grabbed her wrist.

Leading her to the chair, he pushed her down and sat down in his seat, pulling the Daisyroot Draught from the floor.

Upon seeing it, Hermione laughed, and took the lid off her coffee cup.

"It's empty?" He asked, looking at her as if she'd gone mad.

"You don't have a recycling bin in here," she shrugged in response as Harry poured a small amount into the cup. She drank it slowly, letting it sit in her and warm her.

"So," he started as he poured another few fingers into a glass for himself. "Are you going to tell me what happened today?"

Hermione pressed her lips together.

"Well… I got sick, and then Kings dropped me off at the Burrow, and-"

"How about you go back and tell me why exactly you met with Kingsley without telling me?"

Hermione pouted. "I'm sure you know that I don't need your permission to have lunch with a friend, and-"

"He's not a friend right now-"

"Don't interrupt," she said sternly. "Ron's not back, and I needed to hear it from Kingsley himself, and he was acting so strangely the whole time, and-"

"Strange how?"

Hermione widened her eyes at him. Lifting his hands up, Harry leaned back in his seat and took another swig.

"He was just so all over the place, like he had no clue what we were talking about half the time, and then he-"

Harry stood, and opened his mouth, earning a glare from Hermione.

"Sorry," he muttered, "but I really don't want Terry or Andrew to hear us chatting about Kingsley. Go on, I'm just going to put up a silencing charm."

Hermione nodded.

"He was just so odd. I've never seen him like this, Harry. I was asking him about Ron and he interrupted me to ask me what I wanted to speak with him about."

Harry made a face, and Hermione felt her own deadpan.

"Well, you can be awfully confusing sometimes. Did you ask him clearly?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"He couldn't have misunderstood my questions even if he were insane."

Just then, Harry sat up straight in his seat. "You don't think…"

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "That he's insane? No, I just saw him speak in the Wizengamot last night. He's got all his marbles, sadly."

"I mean, he obviously has lost at least a few of them, hasn't he? He's sentenced us to an insane future."

"Well," Hermione grimaced. "It isn't necessarily insane."

"What do you mean? He's forcing you to marry an evil git who-"

"But think about it in a way that would make sense to him, that would make sense to the Wizengamot. I doubt anybody wants this, even if they are evil gits." She explained. "Kings wouldn't sentence us to this for nothing, right? He'd only do it if he thought it would help us."

"The Greater Good can screw off, if that's what he's thinking."

Hermione was sympathetic to his anger over Dumbledore's actions, but the greater good really did exist. Better for everyone never means better for everyone. There would always be someone losing.

"I'm not saying it's fair, but I can see how it could work, Harry," she whispered. It hurt to say, and it hurt to think.

"He'll kill you-"

"Someday there might be a world where there's no more blood mania, and someday there won't be such a thing as pureblood lineage."

"I don't care."

"I do. It destroyed me as a child to think that I was inherently worse than someone else just because of something as trivial as that. It ruined me, Harry. If this law makes it so that no little girl or boy has to feel shame over their blood in the future, then maybe we should be listening to the Wizengamot. Maybe they aren't entirely wrong-"

"Hermione," Harry pleaded. "That will happen with or without the law. It's inevitable."

She looked away, toward his filing cabinet, and stared at the messy writing tacked onto the front of it with magnets.

"I'm just tired of fighting," she breathed shakily. "We shouldn't have gone looking for anything. We should have just sat still and waited for the law, and then we wouldn't have to feel guilty about not being able to fix everything."

"If we didn't know then you'd have been sacrificed to Dolohov without even knowing what you were walking into."

"But I'd at least be able to know that I couldn't have stopped anything. I'd have been just as surprised as Seamus and Dean will be, and it wouldn't be my fault that they're going to be forced to marry innocent girls who won't ever make them happy."

"It's not your fault now," Harry responded, his throat tight as he remembered his two friends. "They'd never hold that against you."

"Because they've always been such believers in your innocence, right?"

Harry took off his glasses and dropped them onto the desk.

"Seamus really can be a prat sometimes, can't he?"

Hermione smiled. "So can everyone, smartypants."

"Some more than others, I reckon. This whole situation is driving me mad, Hermione. I'm going to snap at any moment, I swear."

Hermione held out her cup for a refill.

"I feel the same way. It's too much to think about all the time."

"Why can't we just have an easy life? We won a war, why do we have to wage another?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Because we're the ones who do that."

"Ones is redundant-"

"Shut up, Potter," Hermione crowed as she kicked off her shoes. Two elegant looking high heels fell to the side of Harry's desk, and Harry wondered how on Earth she'd walked from the Burrow to a floo, or to a portkey, or to an anything, in heels.

"Can I tell you a secret?" He asked, sipping his glass with a smile. "I can't even begin to tell you how terrified I was when you asked me to break into Greengrass' office."

"You? Scared? Pshaw!" Hermione announced loudly, feeling the daisyroot in her every vein. "You don't have enough room in your body to feel scared, what with all the muscle and saviour complexes!"

"No, really!" he laughed. "I was so scared, I could have pissed myself."

"Imagine how many illegal things we've done under all of their noses?" She asked, closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair.

"It took a while to get you to come 'round to breaking the rules, but I have to say you do it better than any of us. I'm not sure how I can still be surprised every time you do something naughty."

Hermione looked up at him, grinning.

"If only you and Ronald hadn't given me the mischief bug, I probably wouldn't have ever questioned the rules or what they actually meant. I never would have thought to challenge the Ministry. I can just about promise you that if we were in this exact position with the Marriage Law but I'd never been friends with you or Ron, I'd never have the courage to fight it."

"If you'd never been friends with me in the first place you wouldn't have been paired with that lunatic," he responded solemnly. She wouldn't have been made a target, and nobody would have thought to pair an evil man with an innocent girl.

"I'd be dead without you, " Hermione countered as she looked up to wonder at him: the boy who'd saved her so many times. Harry inhaled deeply, fiddling with his wand before putting it back into his holster.

"And I without you. We're a pretty great team, if I do say so myself."

Hermione smiled at that, a wide toothy smile and Harry imagined that he got to be the one to make her smile like that forever.

Shit, he thought. The drink was stronger than he'd anticipated.

He'd need to thank Neville next time he saw him.

"We just happen to be the perfect combination of brain and brawn." Her eyes scrunched a bit. "You being entirely all the courage."

"Don't think like that, you're plenty brave. Probably braver that the lot of us, if I'm being honest."

"Good one, Harry. But let's not forget how, in our first year, you came to my rescue when that mountain troll trapped me in the girl's washroom."

"Let's not forget how you jumped onto a dragon's back to break out of Gringotts," he pointed out, but Hermione's face was set.

"You're the one that strode into the Forbidden Forest absolutely sure that you would die."

"You're the one who wanted to go with me."

"I'd follow you anywhere, Mr. Gryffindor, if only to keep you safe."

Harry laughed and nodded, muttering under his breath about how he's always needed her there, and though Hermione couldn't understand a word he said, she wished she saw him laugh more. She remembered their youth, back when Harry was so inspired by the Wizarding World and thought that all his troubles were finally behind him. Back when he thought all his troubles were the fault of one evil man and not a corrupted society. Back when he thought it could all be fixed by avenging the murder of his parents.

But now he was following her, wasn't he? That's what he was doing? Wasn't she leading this charge?

Hermione pushed herself forward in her chair, grabbing her cup and fitting the lid back onto it.

"Leaving?" He asked, standing from his seat.

Hermione nodded. The idea of being the one to disrupt his life again, after everything that had happened to him, made her feel awful. His Aline match was probably a good person. If it weren't for her, he might not even have ever wanted to fight the ministry again.

She knew it wasn't all her fault, but the guilt of being the only one of their circles who'd been paired poorly made her terribly uncomfortable. Like she was dragging down the happiness of all her friends. Like her fate would decide theirs too.

"I should check in with Dennis before I leave," she explained, jittery. "He's been working all weekend and helping fill in for me in my absence. He's such a good man, thank god he's not paired with a lunatic."

"Who does he have?"

Hermione smiled. "Fleur's sister."

Harry raised his eyebrows. Lucky man.

And then his brows furled in the twist of one second.

"Weren't veela not included in the census?" He asked, confused.

Hermione thought for a moment.

"Well," she started, "she isn't full veela or anything. Maybe just enough to include?"

Harry stood and walked around the desk picking up Hermione's shoes to hand to her.

The heels were dark black, shiny, and had a small charm on the bottom to keep her from clacking as she moved. He'd seen her wear them a hundred times before, but never had he actually thought to look at her legs when she wore them.

Now her legs was all he could think of.

He handed it to her slowly, holding his arm out to let her steady herself against as she gingerly got it on her foot.

He angled his head just a bit to catch the bend in her knee as she stood on both feet, one much taller than the other.

"Harry?" She asked, holding out a hand. "My other shoe?"

He gave it to her without word, and watched as she leaned herself against the top of his desk to slip it on. He stood, suddenly straining against his trousers, and tried to move behind the corner of his desk.

Spotting her coat still draped across her chair, he grabbed it and held it in front of his waist, waiting for her to collect her things.

When she arranged her purse on her body and her cup in her hand, she looked up at Harry with a smile. He nodded his head as he walked around the desk slowly. He tried to keep his eyes from the witch who, as he strode towards the door, took a drink from her coffee cup. A small bead of the daisyroot stuck to her lip and threatened to dribble down her chin, but her tongue caught it before it could fall anywhere.

Wrapping his hand around the doorknob, Harry felt paralyzed, determined to just turn it and open the door, already, open the door, Harry. But he could feel her behind him, hear her breathing as she fiddled with her purse strings, hear as she twisted open her coffee cup and took a sip.

He could feel her take a step towards him, and then he felt himself aim his wand at the door before him and cast a nonverbal locking charm. He felt himself turn abruptly, and saw the sparkle in her eyes and that was it.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, tossing her coat to the corner of the room.

Hermione squealed, her laughter trailing off in surprise.

Harry kissed her passionately, heatedly and hungrily, and when she finally responded by kissing him back, she was already pulling off his blazer and there was a moment that hung between the two in bated breaths.

In a succession of seconds, Hermione was kicking off her shoes and Harry was hoisting her up onto the hardwood of his desk, leaning into her from between her legs to nibble at her ear. She gasped, heat shooting through her stomach in bolts of electricity that he could feel igniting her hair into live coils. He bit again, and she felt as if she would melt against him if he ever did it again, and Merlin he did. He bit and when his teeth grazed her flesh, he reached for her skirt and pushed it up past her waist. Her legs on his hips tightened as he reached to uncurl them to drag down her knickers but she was having none of it. Keeping her legs firmly around him, she reached for the wand in his holster and cast a vanishing spell.

Harry took a deep breath, shuddering with how intensely his body yearned to take control from him, from his mind. It wanted to separate the two for just this moment with her, but what happened if he let his body have this? What would it do to his mind to relinquish all form of control over his desire? What if he could never look at her again and not see her like this? What if it all worked out, and she got pregnant and Ron came back in time to keep her from Dolohov and what if he saw her on her wedding day and could only think of the time in his office when—

She felt him tense, and pulled his forehead down to hers.

"Let's not be us right now." She breathed in heavy rasps, feeling his hands around her tighten as he moved closer to her without even knowing he was doing it. "Let's not be anybody. Let's not think about anything… please. Right now I just want to be with you, and I don't want the obligation of my whole situation to loom between us."

She opened her eyes to look into his, and swallowed white-hot desire at the look of hunger on his face.

"No," he said firmly, unwavering, and Hermione felt her face flush. "I would actually like nothing more than to be Harry and Hermione right now, and to be honest, I would like nothing more than to take you right here on this desk if you'll let me. As us, regardless of whatever obligation you think I owe you."

Hermione gulped, and smiled involuntarily at him, touching his hair with gentle fingers. Tiny beads of sweat dotted his hairline and freckled his forehead.

"So…" he leaned closer still to her, and she felt his hands start to trail up her thighs. "Hermione Granger... Strong, brave Hermione Granger who breaks rules and does it better than all of us, would you do me the honour of breaking one more with me today?"

Hermione blinked and his clothes were gone, vanished in a snap. Since when did Harry get so powerful? she thought briefly before he touched her higher, deeper. And then it felt like a fire lay under his skin. He was scorching her every nerve, lighting her on fire. She could hardly feel where his hands travelled until she felt him push into her, his hands tangling in her hair and circling around her waist, pulling her around him as he pushed deeper into her.

He groaned and the noise was enough to kill her. He bent over to nip at her neck, enjoying her shallow breaths and how she squirmed around him, begging for movement.

With one hand keeping her firmly in place, he let his other wrap around her hair until he had the mass of it all contained in one fist, and he pulled it back to allow him better access to her neck. Hermione squeaked when he pushed himself further than she'd thought possible, so far it almost hurt, it did hurt, but it also felt so good that she grabbed onto the skin of his hips and pulled him back in on his next thrust, pulling him just as deep.

There was just so much to feel, between his hands and the skin of her legs as they pressed against him, and he moved, and she could feel him move, and she didn't even realize that her breathing wasn't quiet anymore—Merlin, it wasn't loud, but it wasn't silent as she'd expected, and she was suddenly so grateful for the silencing charm. If she listened to anything but the sound of them and their breathing and the desk moving back every time he thrust, she could just about hear the sound of voices outside Harry's office.

And then Harry pulled her closer to the edge; she was hardly on the desk anymore at all, and he was pushing up into her now, and she let go of his hips to circle her arms around his shoulders, pulling her hair from his grip in the process.

She'd never really thought of herself as a biter, but with her face against his neck and her arms holding onto his shoulders, she let herself drag her teeth over his skin.

She could taste his sweat, salty, and remembered how many times she'd refused to hug him because of his sweat. She remembered how many times he'd chased her around the Burrow, or Hogwarts, sweaty after practice or work. How she wished she could go back to her younger self and tell her that one day she'd love the look of sweat glistening against him… Of—

Harry groaned loudly, and his rhythm stuttered.

He pulled himself out completely, and Hermione nearly protested until he took her arm and twisted until she was suddenly against him with her back to his chest.

Her hands scrambled to press against the hardwood as a gentle hand on her back pressed her forward until her chest was laying flat against the desk.

She felt self-conscious for a moment, panic flooding her veins, but when she felt him press back into her, the air left her lungs in a hurried gasp that stirred in her the same feeling that she felt when he'd… When— Hermione gulped and leaned her cheek on the cool wood, her face heating from flushing so profusely.

"Ha—" She began, and he thrust again, knocking the wind out of her lungs in the same loud exhale. At her voice, the hand against her back moved to grip the other end of his desk, and Hermione freed one of her hands to place over his.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut as he hit her deeper even than before. The skin where it met his felt like it was burning—she felt hot on the inside and on the outside, and it felt like there was a flame everywhere.

"Fuck," he swallowed, leaning his head back, eyes closed.

"Harry—" she tried again, urgently, as her body leapt in front of a surging train of nerves that she hadn't even seen coming. It scorched her completely, drawing a feral sound from deep in her chest.

She was almost numb to everything as her back arched, and Harry gasped as his knuckles turned white from gripping the table so hard. He could feel her fingers over his, her hand covering his, and he let go of the desk to grip her hand, squeezing it tightly.

She was still arched, and Harry felt her around his cock, contracting around him just as her fingers squeezed his.

With his other hand, he pulled her up against him, arm circling under her stomach, lifting her so that her feet were completely off the ground, and it was only seconds before he was leaning into her, sagging just as she had done earlier that day, and pressing his forehead against the side of her face, half obstructed by her hair.

Her fingers wove with his as his arms relaxed, and the sheen of sweat against her arms and back and legs felt cool against her burning skin.

And for a moment, maybe longer, as she lay pressed against the desk and he lay pressed against her, she let herself wish, hope, dream, and want for nothing else but this.


	10. Chapter 10

Hermione was not a fan of vulgarities.

Usually.

It took a special kind of person to bring it out of her, and even then, it took a special kind of moment for her to forget entirely that she was not a fan of them. These moments often took her by surprise, when, in fits of anger or frustration, she'd lash out with a severe tone and even worse words. It was something of a mystery to her that she and Harry so frequently spoke like that to one another - with severe words but a surprisingly light tone.

It especially took her by surprise that she actually liked it when Harry spoke to her in that kind of way. He did it as such odd and alarming times, and in such strange ways. Half the time she never expected him to say such things, and she had no clue how to respond. Her cheeks would burn bright red and she'd sputter a laugh, and in her brief lapse of bodily control, he'd already pulled her against the wall, against a table, he'd already started to unbuckle his belt or aim his wand at whatever clothes they were wearing.

At whatever was between the two of them.

It was really quite vulgar, she had to admit to herself.

Shameful, even.

That they could do such things where she ate her breakfast, or where she washed her hair… Where she did her yoga on the occasional weekend if she ever got around to using the mat that permanently resided in the corner of her bedroom.

But by far, her favourite use of vulgarity was when they were sleeping. Or rather, when Harry was sleeping. He didn't spend much time at Grimmauld Place anymore, and Hermione wondered when she'd tire of him snoring faintly, or rolling over loudly in the dead of the night, or fumbling with the odd latch on her door when trying to go to the loo.

She wasn't an easy sleeper. It took her hours when it took Harry minutes, and he always had a penchant for talking in his sleep. It used to bother her that she couldn't sleep, but if felt strangely comforting to hear him murmuring beside her. Reminding her that she wasn't alone in a dark cold room. Reminding her that she wasn't alone. Period.

He'd swear, and he'd grumble, and then he'd be so warm, and she'd press herself against him just a bit, just a bit more than she'd already been, and he'd curl his body around her. And that's when she'd feel his erection down on her thigh, or against her arse, and she would press up against him just a bit more. And then he'd wake up, and rub his stubble against her face, playfully maybe, maybe not, and she'd yawn, and it was almost frightening how natural and easy it felt to go from gently feeling his hands run up the side of her as he kissed her neck to him pushing her nightgown up, off, out, and they'd be together again. Intertwined and breathless.

It was almost heavenly, if she allowed herself to imagine that heaven was full of adulterous sex and profanity.

And oh, how she imagined.

Heaven had never seemed so tangible.

It was sweet and she could taste it in him, on him, she could breathe it in in thick gulps of air that could be a meal on its own, it filled her so much. And he really could fill her so much. She was embarrassed how much he could fill her.

And in some moments, mostly these and whenever she thought about it, she wondered if it wasn't all that bad that Ron hadn't been there when she needed him to be there. If it wouldn't be all that bad if he was safe somewhere, and just didn't come back at all.

It was dark where Ron was.

At first, he wasn't sure where he was, but then his eyes got used to the shadows, and the pale light from the moon, or the sun, or whatever it was that circled overhead. He couldn't quite see it, but he knew that light passed, slivers of it breaking through the ceiling or trees or whatever it was that obscured the light to begin with. And whatever it was that passed, he couldn't remember much. It passed twice before he could even remember his name and his stomach. He was starving, his insides eating at him. He could easily sink his teeth into his own arm if it would help him. How long had it been since he'd eaten?

He'd felt this hunger before, surely. Some time ago, he knew. It would come back to him eventually.

Maybe.

Probably.

Possibly.

He ate small bugs from the ground to quell his tortured stomach. Not as satisfying as an arm would have been. Not as filling. He drank water that dripped down the rocks.

He was still hungry.

.

It was cold where Ron was.

He didn't notice though, not for a long time. He guessed it must have been adrenaline - he'd heard of that before, hadn't he? He couldn't think straight, perhaps due to the gash on his forehead that he discovered when running his fingers through his hair and found it bloody and sore.

But he was cold, and the blood dried and crusted his hair in place. Bits of it flaked off like dandruff and he was sure that if he could see himself in a mirror or a puddle, his hair would be dyed red. People would probably think he was a bloody ginger, god dammit.

Resigned to his sour mood, Ron crossed his arms and leaned back against the ground. It was covered in leaves, and he collected a stack to lay his head on.

It wasn't comfortable.

.

When the third sun, moon, star, thing, passed, he was able to stand, and when he did he dragged his fingers across the rocks, reaching up to grip at them. He wasn't yet strong enough to climb them, and he wasn't yet sure how tall they even were in the first place.

With the fourth passing, he remembered his parents. He remembered his family. He remembered their names.

He rolled them across his tongue one at a time, over and over again.

Molly. Arthur. Bill. Charlie. Percy. Fred. George. Ginny.

Molly. Arthur. Bill. Charlie. Percy. Fred. George. Ginny.

Then he remembered what that all looked like and that's when it hit him.

He was a fucking bloody ginger, without all the blood.

And so was his whole family! He rolled his eyes so far back they could've gotten lost in his skull and set himself to remembering the faces that belonged to the names he knew.

.

With the fifth passing, he remembered Harry. And then he remembered Hermione and Neville, and Seamus, and Dean, and Dumbledore. He remembered McGonagall. He remembered Snape. He remembered Lupin and Tonks and then…

And then he remembered the war.

He remembered being on the run with Harry and Hermione, and Harry had dark hair, and Hemione had big hair, and Harry wore glasses and… Harry…

Where was Harry? Wasn't he supposed to be out here with him? He couldn't remember why Harry should be here at this moment, but he was sure that Harry was supposed to be here with him. They were a team, weren't they? They stuck together, didn't they? Where was Harry?

And then he remembered who hadn't survived.

It was dark and cold, and when Ron finally realized where he was, he cried out and smashed his fists against the rock.

.

It was very bright when Ron awoke, and the light hurt his eyes, so much it made him nauseous. He bent over at the waist, curled over his forearms and vomited. It wasn't much upheaval, he really hadn't eaten enough of anything to have a colourful palette. But it stank, and it was on his clothing, and he was already dirty but at least he hadn't soiled himself, and now he had.

Removing his shirt, he was left with the cold air biting his white freckled skin.

And then he noticed a strange mark on his torso, and he couldn't imagine where such a strange shape would have come from. There were no such rocks on the ground nearby, and nothing that made sense.

He hugged his arms against himself and shook, trying desperately to open his eyes and welcome whatever light it was that shone at him. But he couldn't. He'd gotten too used to the dark and the silence.

It took two hours for his eyes to adjust, and he still squinted at the brightness.

He looked around and recognized where his hands had been touching, climbing, where his mouth had been drinking from.

It was a rock wall all around him, almost like he had been dropped down a poorly excavated well that had been made way too large, and then abandoned partway through building it. Now seeing the area around him, he found it much smaller than he'd thought in the dark. In the light, it looked to be about the size of a kitchen, or a dorm room, or a rich man's office. Maybe even the size of a really rich man's loo. He'd guess it was smaller than a rich man's closet, but he'd seen a pureblooded witch's closet before, and it was bigger than his and Ginny's whole floor at the Burrow.

Ron couldn't fathom how he'd fallen down whatever it was that he was in.

Had he even fallen? He wasn't sure, but wouldn't he be more injured if he'd fallen from that high? It looked to be 40 feet. He deduced this by stacking his shoes one on top of the other and then walking them up one by one until he couldn't reach any further, and then he guessed how many times he'd have been able to do that measurement. And that was unnecessary work because he couldn't even see the top clearly and he couldn't climb something that tall unless he had his wand.

Wait, he stopped.

His wand.

Where was his wand?

He felt his pockets and rummaged through the dirt around him, but he couldn't find it. Ron groaned and sat back, with his face tipped toward the light. He wasn't sure where it had been all this time. Perhaps everything before that had just been one long night… perhaps the light he saw passing was just a very pattern-oriented firefly that was ticking away hours instead of days. Perhaps it was his eyes tricking him.

Shit, he thought as he rubbed his bearding chin, he'd really mucked up this time.


	11. Chapter 11

Hermione slid her finger across the large wooden mantle on the wall in the small foyer and pulled up a thick layer of dust. It stuck to her skin and her nose wrinkled. With all the cleaning charms in the world, how had all of them managed to avoid this one small division?

She could feel the revulsion to the dust in her stomach.

She wanted to clean it all instantly, but it wasn't hers yet.

It wouldn't belong to her until after Mirthwood's retirement, and despite inching toward it every day, it still felt like the world was moving in millimeters. She could measure out her whole life in coffee spoons at this rate, and she didn't have time to sit and measure her life in spoonfuls; she needed to drink her damn coffee and get to work saving her friends and their friends and their families and her own family and she needed to get started but nothing seemed to move.

It seemed to stall, halt, lilting and sliding sideways so gently that it felt like her head falling against her pillow at night just to stare at the stars outside her window. And the skies… Oh, how the night skies called to her. She stared up and found Orion, the North Star, and the moon and remembered Ron lying in bed beside her telling her that his brothers convinced him for almost a year when he was young that the moon was made of dust that kids swept under the rug. They told him he could double the moon's size if he tried hard enough, and they tricked him into doing their chores for months before Molly found the stash of dirt under the living room rug.

Hermione smiled at the memory and brushed her hands against her pants and drew her wand out. She cast a simple charm, gathering the dust on her pants into a small compact vial and tucked it into her pocket.

Tonight, for the full moon, she would tuck it under her rug and hope that wherever he was, he's alright.

He'll be safe, she willed herself to believe. He'll be happy and safe.

Turning her back to the mantle, she took a deep breath and turned toward the small desk positioned to greet anybody coming into the department, though nobody sat there to greet anyone at all. The position, she recalled, hadn't been filled in almost a year. There were a couple people in the department, but none of them wanted to be there and it seemed almost as if they worked there to pass time until their retirements came up.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione made a quiet comment and the quill and parchment following her around wrote down yet another position she'll have to hire for.

"Miss Granger," an old voice snagged on the corners of her attention and she turned to face the noise.

Mirthwood stood opposite to her in the middle of the door frame that opened up the corridor down to the office areas.

Smiling, Hermione took a few steps toward him to shake his hand. He nodded to her and grimaced, stepping aside and raising an arm.

Thanking him quietly, Hermione strode into the corridor and took a pause at every room. There weren't many rooms, just a handful. She knew from scouting the ministry floorplan that there was easily a whole other section available for use if she could appeal to Kingsley. Just beyond Mirthwood's borders were silent empty rooms filled with dust and from Hermione's calculations, she needed much more room for what was to come.

Muttering under her breath before he could come closer, the quill scribbled down yet another update she would make to the department. She knew it wasn't a done-deal. Mirthwood needed to sign off on her taking his job, and if he was anything like he was when she met him the first time, just over a week ago, it would be a harder endeavor to complete than anticipated.

Sure, she could walk into the ministry and break into high ranking offices, and snoop around in the Minister's room, but convincing an old man that she would take his job and do it well was proving to be more difficult. It seemed that only Kingsley's encouraging words were keeping her in the running, and Kingsley was desperate for her to stay. Merlin knew why he couldn't let her escape to America or Bermuda or Canada.

But the world was moving slowly. Time dripped by like cooling wax and it would stop entirely if she let it. It had already been too long. She only had eleven days left before the law would be announced, and she and Harry had both decided not to test everyday anymore. That proved to be too heartwrenching with every negative result. Instead, every week they would give it a try, and Hermione knew she wasn't supposed to check for another three days, but it felt too much like spoonfuls rather than coffees, hot wax cooling and solidifying halfway down the stick.

Quieting her thoughts, Hermione sat down in the open chair and set a new piece of parchment for the quill.

"There's a reason you want this job, isn't there?" Mirthwood asked, and Hermione's eyes narrowed.

"I was planning on making the switch any-"

"Enough, Miss Granger." He held a hand up and Hermione's mouth shut. "I've been around a long time. I know when things are brewing, and something is brewing."

The quill kept writing, and Hermione quickly yanked the parchment from it. He was testing her, and she wanted no record of it.

"Excuse me, sir?" She asked, voice clear and audible lest there be a device listening to her.

The old man looked grim, sitting before her with a whispering tone. She hadn't been watching him carefully earlier, but had he been watching her? Had he picked up on her urgency? Could he be… Had he-

"There's a reason I'm retiring, Miss Granger." He finally said, gruff and hushed, and Hermione swallowed loudly. "Did you know that I had a son?"

Hermione shook her head slowly, nausea gripping at her ankles.

"Of course you wouldn't. He wasn't very impressive by magical standards. His name was Allen." Mirthwood smiled as he spoke the name, as if his lips were thankful to make the shape of it. Hermione shuddered. Allen Mirthwood… She'd heard the name before. "A smart boy, so caring and thoughtful. He gave up our world entirely when he met Olivia. There wasn't a person on Earth who could change his mind, not that his mother or I would want him to. The world was getting dark, then. We could see it getting darker every day."

"Sir-"

"It's getting dark again." Mirthwood interrupted her, and he removed his glasses revealing clear watery eyes that stared into her. She recoiled instantly, throwing up walls like Harry had taught her to after his occlumency lessons with Snape.

"I-"

"I'm no legilimens, Miss Granger. This is no trap. I know about the law. I know what they're going to do."

Widening her eyes, Hermione looked around for signs of disillusioned aurors, or hitmen, or assassins waiting for her to slip up. None of this was possible, none of it. Mirthwood was just a sad lonely man with a dead career and someone had put him up to messing with her because she'd fucked up, she'd really fucked up something because he knew and that meant that others had to know, and-

"You'll be surprised to learn that my department is the most heavily fortified department in this entire building. It's impenetrable. It took us almost 50 years to make it this safe," he looked proud as he spoke. "The few of us left started construction a while ago when we found out. I'll have the plans delivered to you somehow, after we're gone, of course."

"I don't understand," Hermione croaked, her voice faltering.

"It's really quite simple," he responded somberly. "I have a granddaughter."

Hermione's brow furrowed and her mouth hung open, agape, but Mirthwood just smiled at her. It was a grim smile, one that wasn't happy. But her nodded to her, and Hermione's chest sagged a bit into herself.

"Minister Shacklebolt would like me to oversee your first few months here, but to be frank, I'd like to get as far from here as I can. Allen and Olivia died a few years ago, and my wife and I will not sit around and wait to find out if our granddaughter is magical or not."

"Sir, why are you telling me this?"

"There was a lot of planning that went into it. You can't stop it from happening, but you can help people. You _will_ help people."

"How did you know?"

"Miss Granger, I am no legilimens, but in this line of work, it's important to have one or two on the payroll."

A small shuffling noise behind her pulled her from Mirthwood, a small noise that deflated her and she turned expecting to see Malfoy or Greengrass but instead there were three older ladies, women she'd never seen. One of them took a step forward, holding her hand out to clasp Hermione's.

Hermione looked back and forth between the strangers around her who knew.

Not only who knew, but who wanted to do something.

Harry groaned at the office and knocked his head against the desk. McLaggen had returned just the day before, but Harry still hadn't been able to pull himself from all the paperwork he ought to have finished before McLaggen ever returned.

He was so busy, and he couldn't even explain to Finian why. He couldn't reasonably walk up to him and tell him how he and Hermione had broken into their superior's office and illegally read themselves in on a major law, and are now trying to force their way into a loophole the size of a crumb.

"You alright in there, Potter?" Andrew Anglehorn muttered, standing in the open doorway.

Harry blinked at him and removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose. He nodded hesitantly, and then shook his head quickly, trying to wake himself up. He'd been sitting here all night, and half the time he was supposed to be working the whole day before he'd spent tapping his pen against the papers on his desk. It was only when he got the call from Hermione that she'd made it home after hours in her final interview that he actually began focusing on his work, and even still, the cryptic message she left him with before falling asleep kept tempting him into distraction. It almost begged him to apparate back to Hermione's flat and press for more details, but he had a job. He had a real job to do, and it wasn't the time to let distractions rule over him. Now was the time to solidify himself as the perfectly trustworthy auror and man to be left in charge when things went down.

"What time is it now?" Harry asked, and Anglehorn rummaged around in his pocket, pulling out an old pocket watch engraved with the Anglehorn family crest. "Do you really carry that thing everywhere?"

Anglehorn chuckled, tucking it back into his pocket.

"About 6 in the morning. And yeah, it belonged to my great-grandad. Left it to me with the cottage when he died."

"I didn't know he left you a cottage, where is that?" Harry asked.

Andrew opened his mouth to speak but before he could, Terry's lod voice interjected.

"More like a glorified shack if you ask me," Terry laughed from his desk. "How Susan could even consider moving in is beyond me. All that money and all you get is a watch and some dingy shack?"

"It's bigger once you get inside, how many times do I have to tell you!"

"Yeah, I bet that's what you tell Susan every night, huh?"

"Susan's moving in?" Harry asked, thankful for the distraction.

"About a month ago, mate, where have you been?" Terry jeered. "Can't you tell by all the pink Andy's wearing these days?"

"Shut up, Boot." Andrew warned, smiling. He then turned back to Harry, raising a hand. "Which reminds me, McLaggen told me to tell you that Minister Shacklebolt and Lord Greengrass need you both in for a meeting."

"How does telling me to shut up remind you of that?" Terry asked, his brows furled in mock confusion.

"You were being a prick when I got the message and you're being a prick now. See the correlation?"

"Ooh, big word, did Susan teach you that?"

"Andrew," Harry spoke loudly, "When is the meeting?"

"Around 10, I think?" He responded, holding up a letterhead with Kingsley's stamp on it, still engaged in listening to whatever Terry was prattling on about.

Shit, Harry thought. He had more work on his desk than what he could do in that timeframe.

"I bet Arnold and Bridget made loads more than you from the Will, huh?"

Andrew laughed. "Of course they fucking did. Oh, the joys of being born first. Bet you wish you'd asked her out now, don't you?"

Terry grinned slyly. "Never had to bother when she was giving out the goods for free."

"Oy," Andrew warned, and Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't you dare say you touched my sister."

Terry put his hands up beside his head and snickered, but paled when Andrew left Harry's door frame to approach him, fists clenched and muscles taut.

"Jesus, mate. I never touched your bloody sister, back off now, why don't ya?"

Harry stood and rubbed his eyes before putting his glasses back on and stood outside his office just long enough for Terry to mutter another idiotic thing and in an instant Andrew and Terry were lunging at each other and swatting hands and faces until they both peeled off in laughter.

"Anglehorn," Harry said sternly, earning a quarter of attention from the auror. "Where is McLaggen?"

"Meeting's not until 10-"

"I need to ask him something before we open." He didn't really, but anything would be preferable to listening to Andrew and Terry bicker about any damn thing under the sun.

Or moon, for that matter.

Andrew mumbled something and Harry stretched, taking the message scribbled down in Kingley's familiar handwriting, before grabbing his jacket and heading for the door back into the ministry.

He would prefer to grab a coffee to stay awake at this time, but after his meeting he'd be free to go home and sleep, and then wake up to hear whatever news Hermione had about the interview.

He hoped she got it. And he also hoped she didn't. Seeing the suffering up close where she could interact daily with all the people truly hurt by her not going public seemed to him to be the worst possibility for her. But at the same time, staying where she was in the ministry was sure to hurt her no matter what happened.

It wasn't a short walk from the station to Kingsley's office. There were many corridors and elevators and it took far too much time when Harry was in a hurry, and even though Harry wasn't in a hurry to find McLaggen, he was just too tired to not try to run through the hallways and open areas.

He sped in coffees and hot wax lest they cool down and halt to a stop while he was still unaware.

Finally arriving, he gestured to the young wizard behind the desk before continuing to walk, but two aurors outside the door stood in front of him.

"Sir," one of them nodded to him, but didn't step aside.

"I need to speak with McLaggen, he's-"

"I'm sorry, sir," the other auror stated loudly. "The Minister for Magic is in an important meeting and-"

"And I only need a second of their time. Kingsley will allow it, just ask him if-"

The young wizard behind him tapped his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but the Minister is in a very important meeting with Lord Greengrass and Mr. McLaggen and-"

Harry held up the message from Kingsley, with the stamp from right off of Kingsley's own desk.

The young man sighed and pushed his hair back in annoyance, grumbled something about not being told everything, and trudged back to his desk. The aurors stepped back and Harry noticed one of them was red in the face.

"No harm done," Harry yawned to the aurors, glancing back to the letterhead. It was creased from his pocket and he felt almost ashamed this neither of his own men had asked to hold the message in their own hands. Surely they would have then noticed that the time he hid under his thumb was not the current time, and they wouldn't let him in.

And in all fairness, he wouldn't have tried if there had been any more people other than his superiors and had they not been precisely who he was set to be meeting in just a few hours.

Forcing the note back into his pocket, he thanked the guards and pulled on the doors of Kingsley's office, just quickly enough to catch the tail end of a sentence spoken by Lord Greengrass himself.

"Excuse me?" Harry asked, his face draining of colour as the words sank in.

Kingsley shot up to his feet, eyes wide.

"Harry, what are-"

"What did he just say?" Harry asked, hearing his voice speak just beside his ear. He turned to face it, but nothing was there. He'd spoken through his own mouth, though it definitely didn't feel like it.

Finian McLaggen stood and tried to usher him out the closing doors, but Harry pushed him towards a wall, taking a step toward the desk.

"Tell me what he just said, Kingsley," Harry warned, and he could feel his face flushing.

"Ron is dead," Lord Greengrass stated in a monotone voice, almost uncaring. Nearly emotionless, though a tinny tinge of annoyance tainted his words. He didn't even bother looking up to Harry, who walked straight up to the desk that Lord Greengrass and Kingsley sat behind. Two chairs, with Lord Greengrass situated where Kings should have been.

Harry balked. 

No. No, this wasn't-

"I don't understand, I-"

"What's so hard to understand here, Potter? If this is so difficult to wrap your head around then what in Merlin's name are you doing as Junior Chief of my department, what-" He spoke with a raking voice, one that gently gripped Harry time and time again until it left him all raked up. He spoke as if Ron's death was merely an inconvenience. Rather than the worst thing that could happen to Harry.

Harry pointed his eyes toward Kingsley, eyebrows raised. 

"You said he'd come back." 

Kingsley sputtered, his watery eyes red from crying, presumably. Even if Kings was maybe an enemy now, he still cared. He still loved. Harry couldn't imagine he wanted anybody dead. 

Dead. 

Ron… 

"We tracked him all the way out in Russia. He'd been investigating a pack of werewolves who seemed to have doubled over the last six months. He was chosen to go because of his brother's condition, and because of his connection to Miss Granger. He made only his first four check-ins, and then went off the grid." 

"How long?" Harry asked, his voice again coming from somewhere beside him, but when he looked he found nothing but McLaggen against a wall with his hand wrapped against his forehead. 

"Excuse me?" Lord Greengrass purred, his voice smooth and deep. 

"How long was he off the grid?" 

"Were you read in on this case, Mr. Potter?" 

"No, but-" 

"Then you have no reason to know the particulars." 

"Hyperion," Kingsley murmured, "This isn't just a case. It cannot be. Especially since it hasn't been closed." 

Greengrass rolled his eyes. Leaning back in his chair and lifting a finger to the corner of his mouth, he grazed it down to his jaw and pondered for a moment before sitting up. 

"Ronald Weasley died last night, just after the full moon rose in Russia. We expect he tried to catch the pack in the act and got too close. From all of our accounts, he died within minutes of an attack." 

Harry's vision blurred and he removed his glasses, covering his eyes with his fingers. 

Minutes. 

He'd had minutes to die in. 

He'd felt himself die. 

Harry moved his hands to cover his mouth with the inside of his elbow. He felt nauseous. And

his family… They were barely recovering from one missing Weasley, they would just fall apart when they heard about… And Hermione… 

There was nothing he could do to prepare her…

Harry gulped and tried to push his every emotion out of his throat and stomach and into his limbs. If he could push all the pain into his fingers, maybe he'd be able to think properly. 

"How soon can I get to where he's being kept?" He asked. "I'd like to see him. Before his family and Hermione find out… I don't want them to have to identify him-" 

"That won't be necessary, we-" 

"Listen," Harry interrupted, his face warm and cold and all temperatures that didn't go together well. Like a storm was brewing in his face, behind his brows, just underneath his skin… "I get that you probably don't need anybody to identify him, you've got spells to do that for you. But Ron is my best friend, and I won't leave until I can tell Molly and Arthur that I held his hand one last time for them, and there is no goddamned way that-" 

"I'm afraid there is no body, Mr. Potter." 

Harry squinted. 

"No… body? Then how do you know-" 

"Mr. Potter, if that is all-" 

"How can you tell if it's really him if there's no body?" He yelled loudly and he winced. The pounding in his head threatened to force him to the floor if he didn't find a safe place to fall soon. 

"Werewolves don't generally leave much behind, or have you experienced more friendly beasts in your studies?" 

"Remus wasn't-" 

"Let's not justify an entire species just because of one good man. Take a moment to gather yourself, Potter. He suffered a great deal in the minutes it took him to die. Take comfort that he didn't last longer." 

Harry looked between Lord Greengrass and Kingsley, tears clinging to stay inside him. Glancing behind him, he could see McLaggen had slid to the ground, his arms circling and cradling his head.

He could hear quiet whimpering but when he put his glasses back on to look at McLaggen, he could see that it wasn't McLaggen at all, but himself.

Harry was the one whimpering. He could feel it suddenly inside him, shaking through his chest.

"We were going to wait until later to-"

"No." Harry interrupted Kingsley, "You don't get to wait until later. You don't get to find out and have meetings and tell everyone else about _my best friend_ before you tell me. That isn't how this works, that isn't-"

"Mr. Potter, you're speaking to the Minister for Magic," Lord Greengrass purred. "There are protocols for this kind of thing."

Harry shook his head.

"You should have told me as soon as you knew."

Kingsley opened his mouth, but Hyperion lifted a finger and silenced him instantly.

"And what the hell is this?" Harry asked, hands gesturing towards Lord Greengrass. "Why is he sitting in your chair with you off to the side? What's going on here?" He pressed, and he could hear his voice heighten into panic, he could hear-

Lord Greengrass stood and with a twist of his wand, Harry blinked and was suddenly planted outside the doors of Kingsley's office.

There were a lot more movements than Harry could keep track of while trying to get back inside the door. He was held steadfast by the two aurors who he could hear apologizing and panicking.

Did they know?

Did Kingsley tell him first? Before he'd told Harry?

Did the two wizards send message back to his department?

Did Boot and Anglehorn know already?

Harry felt sick.

Hermione.

Pushing the men off him, Harry threw his hands up and walked backwards until he got out of the foyer area, retreating until he found a floo. He had to get to her in case anybody tried to tell her without him there, he had to get home, he had to get to-

He stumbled into the floo and threw down the powder, yelling Hermione's address and there was a burst of smoke and he coughed, rolling out in Hermione's flat. She'd refused to get a floo for so long and finally consented when Harry promised he'd be extra careful not to get soot all over her carpet and furniture.

"Sweet Circe," Harry heard Hermione say as he fell out, soot fluffing outwards.

Getting up, he raggedly swayed until he found her face and saw her eyes red from crying.

Fuck, he thought. She'd found out somehow, she always had a way of-

Hermione smiled.

"Harry," she whispered, "we did it! I'm pregnant!"

Hermione lifted the test and held it out to him.

Harry blinked.

"Ron's dead." He managed to say, quietly, and in the moment before his eyes closed and he fell back, he could see the smile drain out of her face like a hair in a bathtub, sucked away entirely. The colour fell and and her mouth opened and she said something, but Harry couldn't hear.

Ron was dead.

He was gone, and Hermione was pregnant, and the world was moving too quickly for him. He needed for it all to stop.

He needed for it to slow down.

He needed the wax to cool, he needed to breathe, he needed everything to stop.


	12. Chapter 12

It's a strange feeling when you find yourself completely out of your depths.

It's like being drowned in thought, or in the absence of thought. It's like the world ceases to exist, because why would it even bother to continue existing without the things that make existence worthwhile?

There were things they wanted for themselves.

Things that didn't involve drowning.

Things that didn't involve such desperation that, should they survive, would taint the rest of their lives. This need to survive flowed through them, and for what?

For Ron to just be dead? For him to be gone? For—

"He doesn't feel dead," Hermione muttered, her voice weak and raspy. "They're lying to us. How would they even know if—"

"It's the shock collar, 'Mi. They've got all of us hooked up to it. It's just like you said." Harry sniffled.

"Molly doesn't think he's dead," Hermione said sourly.

Harry grimaced. "Molly's not thinking straight."

"Or maybe she's thinking straighter than all of us. You saw the clock, Harry. You tell me how Ron's marker isn't pointed towards mortal peril or lost or any of the things it ought to have been showing these past months?"

"You know as well as I that it doesn't bloody work anymore."

"It works sometimes—"

"Last week it said that both George and Arthur were at Hogwarts when they were clearly in the kitchen with Ginny and I, and last year Molly went into hysterics when it showed Fred alive and well at the Burrow."

"But—"

"But nothing, Hermione. You weren't there in that room with Lord Greengrass and Kingsley and McLaggen. You didn't hear them." Harry thought to the muted annoyance in Greengrass' voice… to the way his very own lungs emptied of breath when he looked to Kingsley and found him holding back tears. It was real for Kingsley. It was real for Greengrass, even if for him it was just an inconvenience.

"But he can't be dead... he can't be." Hermione chewed the words between her teeth. "The plan worked. I'm pregnant. He has to come back."

Harry refrained from looking at her. They were both desperate, but it seemed to him that there was quite a difference in what they were desperate for. Hermione was safe now. Harry could step forward for her, they could be alright, and they'd have a baby if everything worked out. But Harry was desperate because Hermione wanted him to be Ron, and there was nothing he could do to ever become Ron. He wasn't Ron, he wasn't Ron at all, and for a while he thought that was good and special and part of what made their relationship work so well but he told her Ron died and the noises she made when his ears finally started to work again still echoed through his head every moment he had enough breath to even breathe.

The screaming and groaning and wailing wasn't what Harry expected.

He didn't know what he expected anymore, not really...

Nothing was what it seemed to be.

Ron was supposed to be alive and shrugging off work and being a nuisance somewhere shirking his responsibilities. He was supposed to be a prat that Harry could blame for not being there when they needed him.

He wasn't supposed to be dead.

Harry rolled onto his side to watch Hermione. She was lying on her back, eyes open, unmoving. Tiny bits of sun broke through the closed curtains, illuminating the small smattering of dust that floated through the stagnant air.

"I'm going to spend some time at the Burrow," he spoke quietly. "Gin told me that Molly can't go into his room still. There are a few things he'll want cleaned out before his family starts going through his stuff."

Rolling off the bed, Harry gathered his things from the floor and tucked them into a small travel bag. There were a few things scattered about the flat, and he walked into each new room like a ghost fighting to stop reliving the moments where he was truly alive in the spaces right before him, and then he walked back and she was still there on the bed, lying on her back, eyes open, unmoving. He was a ghost next to a fresh corpse who had no ghost of her own, and he scrunched his face every time he dared look back to her.

But not everything was about her, was it?

No.

Harry lost his best friend, and Ginny lost her brother. Molly and Arthur lost another son. Harry hurt, and it felt like he was being ripped in two, like the part of him that always considered Ron to be his true second half was being sliced by a dull knife and every nerve screamed at the loss.

And Hermione heard him wandering her flat, and she heard him pause occasionally at her door, and she could feel his eyes on her. She could feel him watching her and worrying about her and she was so angry. After everything he went through, how had he landed on acceptance? How had he decided that trusting the word of evil men was the right thing to do?

She watched the ceiling.

She watched the miniscule shadows form and sway as the image of a woman's face stared back at her. It looked like she was staring up at a mirror, or rather, a watercolour self-portrait, her eyes piercing her own.

There was a scuffling noise and the sound of the Floo, and then he was gone.

Hermione wanted to get up.

She wanted to stand up and move and get the hell out of her bed. She'd spent nearly two days there and her whole body ached, and she could hear her stomach start to make noise.

But she couldn't move.

She didn't want to, not really.

She wanted both, and nothing, and might never want again.

Her stomach growled, and she absently put a hand over her waist before she remembered.

They'd done it. She was pregnant. Tearing her eyes from the ceiling, she looked down at her body and stared, almost mournfully, at the life she was bringing into the world to save her own. This was something bad, she thought. This was an anchor baby, tethering her to a safe life. This was a donor baby, born only to save the life of someone else.

Would this child grow up and resent Hermione for her decisions? Would it despise her?

Would it look like Harry?

Hermione's stomach growled yet again, and with a heaving noise that ripped through her lips, she grabbed the glass of water left by her bedside and hauled herself from the bed, launching it at the wall. A weak smashing of glass erupted and littered the floor, and Hermione felt that it was far too quiet to justify the swelling water that drowned out every thought she had. She stalked from her bedroom to the kitchen and in a glorious moment of crackling hair and pure energy, glass whipped in front of her and behind, trails of magic tying itself to distant walls like powerful magnets drawing anything breakable.

It felt like a hurricane in a still home, but as she tossed glasses and plates and shrieked, shattering the lightbulbs above her and getting hot glass in her wiry hair, she didn't even consider that she'd become a poltergeist in her own home, haunting herself to calm everything inside her that was still drowning and gasping for breath.

Hermione drummed her fingers against her thigh, a rhythmic pattern that her fingers played at without even thinking it. It was some tune she knew from her childhood, something so ingrained into her that she didn't even know her fingers moved without processing it.

Harry was still gone. He'd left days before, and it was drawing closer to the day he would have to talk with Hermione to the Ministry and learn about the marriage law together with all their friends and families. It was drawing closer to the day he'd step in and ruin their whole world by claiming the child as his own.

Hermione bristled at the thought.

It was days away, yet he hadn't come back. She'd figured out pretty quickly that he hadn't gone to the Burrow after he left, and the immediate fear was quelled by Ginny who confessed that he was back at Grimmauld place.

He was mourning, and apparently he had to do it alone.

He needed to work through what a world without Ron would look like, and Hermione stayed at her flat and sat on her couch, slept on her couch, ate on her couch. It felt like she was glued to it, bonded to it, stapled to the only place in the entire flat where she could see both the Floo and the front door. She'd had to drag the couch to the perfect vantage point, but if Harry came back, she'd know instantly, and… And she wasn't sure what she would do.

She wanted to apologise.

He'd knocked her up all under the pretense that Ron would be coming back, and now what?

Where did they go from here?

Molly would never forgive her, she remarked as she ran her fingers along the couch. Arthur might, but Molly would never forgive her for shacking up with Harry while her son was missing.

Ginny would have a difficult time, but she would be fine. So would George. He'd been nothing but kind to her all along, even when Ron was being a prat and ran off. The rest would struggle, but Molly…

Molly would be broken-hearted, and Harry still hadn't come home or... No. Harry hadn't come _back_. Her flat wasn't his home.

She sat, and she stayed still for hours, or days, or maybe somewhere in the middle. In reality, she knew it couldn't have been more than three days since he left, because each night for the past month had been met with a whisper of the days they had left before everything fell to shit, and it hadn't changed yet.

Lifting her fingers from the tapping noises she made against the couch and her own thighs, Hermione tugged her hair up to tie in a bun. She and Harry would speak before the law was revealed, they would—

A tapping somewhere in her flat caught her attention.

Hermione frowned.

She drew her wand and stood from the couch, taking a step toward the noise and then another. It was coming from her bedroom. Was it possible that someone had broken in? She wasn't sure, and normally she felt like none of this would startle her this way, but the law was approaching and what if the Ministry knew what she'd been doing and hired someone to take care of her?

She raised the wand and took a deep breath before pushing the door open, her voice already picking up to cast anything she could think of but in the place of an intruder, there was only empty air.

The tapping, she discovered, was not quite so terrifying as she imagined.

Behind the window, perched on the potted plants hanging from the sill, sat Hootagin the Weasley owl.

Hermione released a deep sigh and approached the bird, tucking her wand between her teeth and opening the window to retrieve the parchment tied to its leg. It was folded up several times, and Hermione's face ran pale when she began to open it and found bright red blood drying against the parchment.

Grabbing her wand from her mouth, she hurled a hasty detection spell towards the Burrow. She wanted to barge in, her every instinct telling her rush into the fray. But even deeper was an uneasy feeling that told her that it wouldn't just be her rushing into the fray.

The detection spell touched the Weasley property, and Hermione felt a tingling in her fingers. She'd manufactured the spell long ago to help Harry and Ron, though it was still glitchy and needed work. Regardless of the glitches, she'd done it on the Burrow enough times in the past to visualize the blueprint against her skin, and where the spell seeped in the real world, her own skin responded with a resound word: safe. It started in the fingers, at the edge of the property, and worked inwards and then upwards. Except for the lingering sorrow, there was no danger there now, nor had there been danger since Hermione last spoke with Ginny and George just four days earlier.

The sound of Hermione's Floo fluffed out in a billowing cloud and Hermione rushed out, immediately relieved at the sight of Ginny walking out.

And then she really saw Ginny. She was fine, of course. Safe. Strong. Secure. But she had the same hair as Ron, and as Ginny approached, Hermione closed her eyes and leaned against the wall behind her.

"I felt the detection spell," Ginny explained without being asked, reaching her arms toward Hermione. "We're all okay."

Hermione nodded and took hold of Ginny's hands gratefully, fingers intertwining with hers. She found herself embracing the girl without even thinking, and she took a deep inhale of the scent of her.

There was something about Ginny that comforted Hermione. It reminded her of Harry… The faint scent of sweat and dirt, and it reminded her of Ron. The unmistakably lingering of the Burrow everywhere the Weasleys went. It smelled of Molly's cooking, and a warm fire. She breathed it in and tried to keep her lip from trembling.

It wasn't the first time they'd seen each other since learning of Ron's death. They'd been together the day Harry came home to her with the news, but it felt like all of them were in a thick haze of their own and nobody really interacted. They just held hands and held each other and pretended that the world wasn't crumbling. They imagined that their whole set of lives weren't being built up in sand by a child at the beach who held a bucket of water and perched atop them to douse them and drown them and laugh as they collapsed.

But Ginny was here now, and she looked as though she'd been crying, but there was no blood.

"Is anybody hurt?" Hermione asked. "Someone sent me a note and bled all in it, I got worried—"

Ginny gave her an odd look.

"We haven't sent anything to anyone in days. What did you get?"

Hermione, still holding Ginny's hands, pulled her toward her bedroom door where Hootagin preened and ruffled his feathers at the sight of the redhead.

"Hootagin!" Ginny admonished, and leapt toward the bird. "Where on Earth have you been?"

Ginny scowled at the bird and then turned back to Hermione.

"He's been missing for weeks," she explained to Hermione, who was taken aback by the reaction to the owl. "We've been using Bill and Fleur's owl ever since. We thought he got lost or up and died on us. What a dumb bird," she exclaimed.

Dropping Hermione's hands, she walked to the bathroom, and Hermione returned back to the bird and the note it had pulled from her fingers and tucked into his feathers. Unfolding it a bit more, she could see that the blood had made parts of the parchment weak and soft.

Ginny returned from the bathroom, eyes red, and with a handful of cloth soaked in water. She began to clean the owl and avoided looking at Hermione.

"I saw the tests on the counter," she murmured after a moment, and Hermione stiffened.

Right.

Nobody told her…

"Gin," she began, but she was cut off by a stern hand.

"I'm happy for you, you know." She turned her back to the bird. "Ron would be happy too. If he were here and knew what was going on, he'd be happy that Harry kept you safe."

Hermione's eyes welled with tears.

"Perhaps, but I can't imagine he'd be very proud of how it happened."

Ginny smiled. "Probably not, the jealous prat. But he valued your safety above your virtue. He'd probably have thrown a fit, but he'd understand. He wasn't a total arsehole."

Hermione bit her lip.

"So," Ginny said in a cheerier tone. "You got a note?"

Hermione nodded, handing the note out. Hootagin tried to pull it back, but Ginny blocked the attempt with deft hands as if she were protecting a quaffle.

Ginny's brow furrowed as she opened it.

"You got this today?" Ginny asked, and Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"I've been sleeping in the living room for a few days, he might have shown up during that time."

"But you've never seen this before?"

Hermione shook her head. "I didn't even open it before you came over. Why, do you recognize it?"

Ginny took a deep breath.

"This is the note that Mum sent to Ron all those weeks ago when we found out."

"Found out about…?"

"About the law, Hermione! Mum sent this out the morning George had the idea to knock you up to get you out of marrying Dolohov." 

"I don't understand, so what if the bird brought the note back?" 

"But he didn't bring it back to us… He brought it to you, which means that he had to have been told to bring it to you." 

"Ginny—" 

"The bird is shit, 'Mione, but he listens to us, and none of us ever told him to take this to you. Ron had to have told him; there's nobody else who would think to send this to you. I think he was trying to come back when he died… I think this was his way of telling you he wouldn't be able to make it home." 

Hermione's eyes lit up. 

"Call Harry," she ordered, her voice firm as Ginny's eyebrows lifted. 

"What's going on?" Ginny asked, already digging a pen and paper from her bag. She scrawled a quick note and waved her wand over it, watching as it tucked itself into a firm envelope and flew from her fingers. It vanished in an instant, but Ginny still held her breath. She looked up to see Hermione absent from the living room. 

"Hermione?" She called, and heard rummaging in Hermione's room. 

"The blood is red," Hermione responded, matter-of-factly. 

"So?" 

"So, you're a girl. How long does it take for blood to turn brown or black after it's left the body?" 

Ginny's brow furrowed. 

"It doesn't take long to dry," Hermione continued, "but the ministry says he died just over a week ago. The blood is still red, Gin." 

"I don't understand what you're getting at, 'Mione." Ginny pulled Hermione's arm, yanking her towards herself and out of her growing thought bubbles. Hermione looked up, briefly annoyed, but softened when she saw that Ginny's face was turning bright red, her eyes watery and ready to bulge. "Ron is dead. The ministry told Harry; Lord Greengrass told mum and dad everything. You can't do this to them." 

Hermione lifted a soft hand to Ginny's cheek, wiping away a tear that had started to fall. 

A clashing at Hermione's front door surprised the two witches who only let themselves breathe when Harry appeared. He ran in quickly, sweaty and breathing heavily. 

"What's happened?" he yelled, breathless. "Is the—are—are you alright? Ginny said it was urgent. I got here as soon as I could; is something wrong with the baby?" 

Ginny scrunched her nose and tried to speak. 

"Gin," Harry approached her. 

"Hermione got a note from Hootagin, she thinks it's from Ron and—" 

Harry looked past Ginny at Hermione who stripped off her pyjama shirt to replace it with a warm long sleeve. His eyes loitered over her abdomen for a moment before turning back to Ginny. 

"Who says it isn't from Ron?" he asked defensively. "That bird doesn't listen to anybody but you lot, and even you said last week that you hadn't seen Hootagin in a while. If he found Ron, who's to say he couldn't have—" 

"There's blood on the note he delivered," Hermione interrupted. "And the blood is red." 

She held out the note and Harry took it. He lifted it to the light and brought it close to his face. 

"Ginny," he muttered after a moment. "Go back home. Make sure that Bill is there and clear out as much room as you can at the Burrow. Make sure he leaves the kids with Fleur. Get Molly's first aid kit—"

"Her what?"

Harry shook his head. "That box she keeps her medical things in, Ginny. Go, make sure she has all of that. Go now!"

Ginny froze for a moment before Harry widened his eyes at her, and she disappeared into the Floo.

"Do you still have the bird?" Harry asked, and Hermione nodded, running to her bedroom and hurrying back out with Hootagin gripping her fingers tightly.

"We're going to need to hurry," Hermione spoke quickly as she shimmied off her shorts in exchange for a pair of durable and warm trousers.

Harry looked up and noticed her changing.

"You're not coming with me," he said. "I can't look for him and worry about you at the same time."

"Have you forgotten that I'm not a helpless chit?" she asked, her voice inching towards yelling. "We go together."

Harry disappeared into Hermione's bedroom and returned with a spare pair of clothes.

"Where were you hiding those?" She asked as she pulled a pair of socks onto her feet.

"They're not mine," he responded casually, distracted. "Ron always had them here in case he was staying over and needed something to go to work in."

Hermione offered her small pouch, and he thrust the warm clothes inside where they all but vanished from sight. Tucking a jumper in for extra measure, Hermione tightened the drawstrings.

"Food," Harry reminded her and left to her kitchen.

"What the FUCK?" he yelled, and Hermione winced. She'd not repaired any of the broken dishes or cups yet, and the floor was covered in chunks of glass and fine dust.

"We don't have time to argue, Harry. We have to leave now. How do we do this?"

Tossing a few cans of beans and the remainder of a wrapped roast chicken into the pouch, Harry stood straight and closed his eyes, willing himself to fix the wobbling in his knees.

He could do this, he thought.

"I've got no idea how the owl even found him in the first place."

"Harry," Hermione asked, and he turned to see her eyes watery and clouding. "What if he's really dead?"

"Then we bring him back to Molly, and we bury him as a family."

Hermione cringed at the thought.

Harry said something, but Hermione didn't hear him.

"Pardon?" she asked, clearing her mind of the image of Ron torn open on the forest floor.

"I asked," he repeated, "if you're sure you can do this. You've got to be more careful now, and—"

"Shut up, Harry." His eyes widened at her. "This is non-negotiable. Whatever we find, at least neither of us will be alone."

Finally, after what felt like minutes of contemplation, he nodded to her and held out a hand. He stood up straight and rolled his shoulders, stretching them out before grasping his wand tightly in his fist.

"I don't know what we'll be walking into," he began, "but we'll follow the bird. Get him ready."

Hermione baulked. "Follow the _bird?_"

"Nothing traceable, remember?"

"Apparition isn't traceable, and—"

"And we have no idea where to Apparate to. If it was as easy as thinking of Ron and being beside him, we would be in a very different situation right now. We fly, and we fly now."

Harry pulled Hermione towards the Floo and disappeared into it, and then so did she and Hootagin, still perched on her fingers.

In a billowing plume, Hermione stepped into Grimmauld Place where Harry was already returning from the room where he kept his broom and the spare one Ginny used to use for practice before they broke up. Hermione winced at the obvious reminder that he still had feelings for their friend.

Chucking it toward her and pulling her up the stairs, Harry pushed open his bedroom door and barged straight through to the tiny door that opened up to a terrace. And then they were off the ground, and Hermione shivered. Her legs felt awfully weak against the wooden hilt, and the vibrations of the broom in the wind were almost too much for her to handle. Her fingers grew numb quickly, and her teeth started to chatter, and she'd only just taken off. It had only just begun and she was already pathetically awful at this.

She would only slow Harry down.

She should have asked Harry to take Ginny, who knew precisely how to fly and was perfectly used to the heights.

She should have stayed behind with Molly and waited, as mothers do. Right? Mothers do that?

No, she remembered. Molly didn't wait back at home during the battle of Hogwarts. Hermione couldn't think of a mother at all who didn't fight for their families, and Ron was more than family to her.

Her stomach sank, and when she was finally up above what people could see, Harry looped down beside her, where Hootagin was flapping in small circles waiting for the two of them.

"We're going to be fast," he told her. "We won't have time to take breaks if you get tired."

Hermione nodded to him and gripped the broom hilt tightly. Harry pulled up close beside her, the wind from up this high whipping her hair about her face and into tangles, and her ears started to hurt.

Removing his hands from the broom, Harry leaned over to her side to pull her pouch toward himself. He pulled it open and reached inside, pulling out a helmet that he fashioned onto Hermione's head.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She wasn't so bad at flying that she'd just fall off.

"Don't give me that look," Harry said passively, his eyes on her forearm as he tugged a pair of gloves onto her hands.

"What look?" Hermione pouted, her lips pinched and eyes narrowed.

"That one. Don't do it. I don't care if you need it or not, I'm not taking any chances." He made a quick move to her other side and when he was ready, he handed Hootagin the note—open—with Molly's scrawling of Ron's name. The bird snatched it with his thick talons and was off, flying east.

They followed the bird, and it was a long while of flying without movement. Hermione wished she'd gone to the bathroom before she left, but Harry was moving too quickly, and Hootagin was flying at a speed that seemed far too fast for the owl. It soared quickly and without pause, and the night had long since arrived when Hootagin began to lower himself. It had been hours and it was so dark that Hermione's wand, still attached to the holster of the glove Harry had put on her, could feel the energy of her not even holding it and lit up a soft yellow glow to keep an eye on the owl.

It was cold and isolated where they were when they finally touched down, and Hermione doubled over and wretched as soon as her feet felt the ground again. Her legs wobbled and collapsed, and Harry ran over to loop his arms under her waist as her stomach emptied itself all across the leaves.

"I never want to fly again," Hermione croaked, and she dove a hand into her pouch to pull out a bottle of water. It was fully stocked with calming draughts and relief potions, but her own comfort seemed to matter very little now. Water would suffice.

After a moment of readjusting herself, Hermione looked up to Harry. He was no longer holding her but looking around eerily. It was too dark to see anything with any real clarity, but Hootagin trilled out a series of soft hoots, and when Hermione raised an illuminated wand to see him more clearly, she saw that he'd fallen asleep.

"I don't understand where we are," Harry murmured. "Is this the last place Hoot saw Ron?"

Hermione gulped and gasped, still gaining her on-land composure.

"How did he find Ron here at all?" she asked, and cast glowing balls of light to extend around them, circling and drifting like mid-air jellyfish. In this dark, she was more worried about falling down a cliff than a creature of the night finding her.

"If there were more light we could track footprints or magical signatures, but there's nothing here and no light to see it." He responded. After years of working as an Auror, he had tricks up his sleeve that she didn't immediately know to use. He had far surpassed her skills in hunting, though Hermione was sure that if she studied and set herself to learning the kind of skills that Harry had, she'd far surpass him and-

"Hermione," Harry interrupted her thoughts, and Hermione bristled. "I think I found something."

Hermione was at his side in an instant and peering closely at a small smudge of blood on the trunk of the tree Hootagin sat in.

Not as dumb as they'd thought.

"Is there any more?" Hermione asked, touching her fingers to the blood. It was dried, and the red dust of it rubbed off around where she touched.

Harry shook his head. It wasn't much blood at all; it looked as though he'd just paused to lean against the tree.

"We know he was here." he responded, his voice somber. It looked as though it might have just been a bloody nose.

Harry rubbed his eyes.

Knowing Ginny, she'd probably stumbled into the Burrow and raised every alarm to Molly. He could only imagine what the woman was doing now. He didn't want to think of her trembling and scared for all these hours.

Slivers of light were already peeking through the trees.

Not real light, not like the sun. It looked more like the night before the sun. The dark was just a bit dimmer, the trees just a bit more visible. With a tracking charm, Harry was able to direct Hermione's little floating jellyfish lights in the direction that Ron left in. It was slow work, with the lights bobbing and swaying, pulling back as if an air current were sucking them in.

And they didn't speak as they followed each other. It was dark and then lighter and then they could almost see colour. Hootagin hopped around them and occasionally disappeared, returning with a smug look and bits of fur in his beak.

This forest was very different than the one she and Harry braved together all those years ago. It looked eerily similar, but light snow shivered around them. They hadn't seen it in the dark, or felt the cold through their heating charms. Both Hermione and Harry looked at each other warily when a clearing became visible, with snow deeper than what they'd thought to expect. Under the trees it was hardly breaking through the ceiling canopy, and the light even looked more strained there. When they actually stepped out into the snow, the pale light of returning dawn pointed them toward a strange dip in the ground before them.

She couldn't imagine how long they'd been gone. The night blurred around her and she guessed that the time difference wasn't helping. To be perfectly frank, both of her and Harry had gotten overwhelmingly lost in thought as the two of them trudged after Ron.

Hermione and Harry approached the tip in the ground and peered down, surprised to find something of a 30 foot drop. Far below them, a figure laid with blood plumed into the snow.

"Ron?" Hermione breathed, and it wasn't a moment before she screamed his name into the gaping Earth, echoes bouncing off distant mountains.

The figure below them didn't move, but as Harry threw himself down into the hole, so too did the jellyfish orbs, which lit up the area and reflected off the bright red hair of the man on the ground, who, as the sound of Hermione's scream made its way through his ears, opened his eyes.

"Ron," Hermione cried, apparating to the body's side.

"I knew you'd find me," Ron whispered, his voice hoarse and dense. "I knew it."


	13. Chapter 13

Harry pulled Ron's clothing back to expose where the blood must have been coming from and his throat constricted.

There was blood everywhere, and from what he could see in the breaking dawn, large gashes wove around his torso and onto his legs. Tufts of mottled fur and drying blood stuck to Harry's trousers and he shone his wand over the scene while Hermione cradled Ron's limp head and stroked his damp hair.

"We need to move him," Harry said finally, looking up at the ledge of the pit and gripping his wand tightly, but Hermione snatched the wand from his fist and held it close.

"Don't you dare," she whispered, eyes frantic. "He's too hurt. He'll never survive apparating in this state. You'll splinch him straight in half in less than a second."

"He won't make it an hour if we can't get him help, Hermione."

Ron's mouth opened slightly to object, but a weak whine took the place of words. He gripped Hermione's hands tightly and tried to keep his eyes open, he tried to open them just a bit, just to make sure he wasn't dreaming. They'd come for him, and they were here, and Ron might not have cared if he died right there with them. But he'd read his mother's letter, too late, but he'd read it anyway, and he had to stay alive. He had to be alive for Hermione and Harry.

"Ssir…" He tried to speak, but Hermione stroked his cheek and it was nearly enough to lull him to sleep.

"We need to get him to the nearest hospital," Harry tried again, and this time his words were met with a hoarse wheeze. Harry's brows knit together. "Now's not the time for heroics, Ron. You need professional help."

Hermione tried to silence Ron, to quiet him lest he disturbed his injuries even more. The webbing of deep lacerations were almost crusting at the edges, and a strange hue seeped deep below his skin as if bruises filled with dark gasoline were blooming under his wounds.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the awfully familiar injuries on Ron's torso and then lifted her own jumper up around her stomach. In the light of Harry's wand and the little jellyfish lights, she could see the webbing of her own scars.

"Harry," she whispered, her fingers starting to tremble.

Harry looked over to Hermione ready to protest whatever desperate plea she might spew to not move Ron, but when he looked he saw her shirts pulled up around her waist and her lips quivering.

"Guys..." Ron croaked with what looked like a great deal of effort, "don't panic…"

A stick cracked above the pit, just at the ledge they'd been standing on, and in an instant, Harry had drawn Hermione's own wand from the ground beside Ron and was suddenly standing above the pit face to face with a wiry looking man.

"You need to get him out of here," the man said in a thin almost-Russian accent. He looked a bit older than Harry, perhaps maybe only by a few years. But he looked rougher. He was dirty, and his clothes were stained with mud and dirt and the knees of his trousers were sopping wet. Harry could smell him from where he stood, and his nose wrinkled.

Harry could hear Hermione's gasp at the sudden movements and noises. He could hear her fumble for any wand, and he half expected her to apparate to his side, but she didn't.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, and the man before him held his hands up beside his head. He looked too casual. Too unnerved by the wand in his face. Harry's eyes darted around. There had to be others. No lone wizard would accept a wand in his face without anything to protect himself and not piss his pants.

"My name is Sergey, but that's not important right now, what is-"

"Like Hell it is. What have you done?" Harry pointed the wand closer, took a step closer, and the man stood still.

Sergey shrugged. "Not what you're thinking I've done."

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, the chill in the air sinking into his skin. The tip of his wand was almost shaking.

"I'm here to help your friend," Sergey responded after a moment of contemplation. "I sent the bird to you. You got him, yes?"

Harry blinked. "Don't lie to me," Harry spat. "That bird doesn't listen to anyone but-"

Just then, Hootagin swooped in and landed on the man's shoulder and nuzzled into his neck.

"This will make sense soon," the man said, lowering a hand to rustle the young owl's feathers. "But you need to get him somewhere safe. Don't go to a hospital. Take him home. I hear his mother is a wonderful healer. Take him to her, do not pass Go, do you understand?"

Hermione appeared then before him, walking quickly and determinedly to the stranger, and walked straight up to his face as Harry immediately had flashbacks of when Ron returned to them while they were on the run.

She held the wand, Harry's wand, to the man's throat, and still, he did not flinch nor move. Hootagin ruffled his feathers and bent to nip at the wand.

"Tell us what you know," she growled, and her hair crackled.

The man looked her over and sniffed. His eyes darted between him and Hermione for a moment, and a flicker of anger passed over his face.

"I see congratulations are in order for the happy couple." He muttered tightly, and Hermione turned to look at Harry with large eyes, questioning.

"Enough riddles, Sergey," Harry spoke finally, using the name he'd been given with a veil of suspicion. "Why no hospital? Scared the authorities will find you?"

"They already have," Sergey responded. "The rest of us are gone. I've stayed behind to make sure someone has come for him and to explain what happened."

"Then explain," Harry pushed through gritted teeth.

"He'll heal faster than she did," he nodded his head toward Hermione. "But we don't have the resources to heal him here. We got the letter his mother sent, and he tried to run. He tried to get home to his family, even if he knew he'd never make it out alive."

"If I have to ask you to explain yourself one more time-"

"We had to keep him through his first turn. He could've killed you all by accident if he'd gone." He looked down for a moment, still with Hermione jabbing his throat with a wand. She pushed it deeper, her eyes venomous, and the man sighed. "The rest of us were running when we heard him screaming. We weren't far, but when we returned we tried to follow the scent, and then somehow we all got turned around, set in weird directions and not where we'd been before and then everything just… stopped. Whoever was there was gone. Apparition or broom, it doesn't matter. We'd have torn them to pieces."

Ron made a gasping noise, and Hermione flinched, her fingers itching to return to his side.

"So what?" She asked, breathless. "What are you saying then?"

"I think you get what I'm saying. Take him home. Take him to his mother. Your ministry will kill him if they find him now."

Harry, who had been creeping forward with small steps, was close enough to reach Hermione's elbow. He pulled her back a bit, both wands still poised.

Hootagin still sat on the man's shoulder, and as much as Harry hated the man already and wanted to tear his throat out, Hootagin responded to him, and Hootagin only listened to family. This wasn't the time for attack. This was time for recouping the injured.

"We need to go." He said finally, pulling Hermione with him as he apparated to the bottom of the pit where Ron was still trying to stay awake.

"But we don't know enough, we could kill him by-"

"Hermione!" Harry yelled, possibly for the first time in what felt like forever. "Now!"

He grabbed onto Ron's shoulder and lifted him until he could fit himself under Ron's body. He'd only apparated an injured person this way once, but the stakes hadn't been this high. The injuries hadn't been this bad.

He looked at Hermione quietly for a moment before holding her wand out to her.

Pursing her lips, a tear fell from her eye as she took it and returned his own wand to him.

And then they were gone, and she was alone in the pit.

She was alone, and all she could feel was Ron's blood against her skin. It was on her hands, her neck, her clothes, it was in her hair and a bit was in her ear from when she pushed her hair out of the way as it fell around her.

She gripped her wand tightly and in an instant, she was standing in front of the Burrow's open door, and all she could feel was the cold against her now and all she could hear was the screaming inside as Ron was hurriedly lifted onto a table and the rest of the family panicked around him.

Percy, trying to keep his calm but failing horribly, noticed Hermione in the door and grabbed her hand.

She'd never bonded with Percy. Not once. When she was young she thought they'd have been the most similar, but then life happened and he was a prat but now they both stood outside the Burrow. Her in his brother's blood, and him trying not to vomit, and she felt thankful that he was there. She felt thankful to see that he cared up close.

Squeezing his hand, she offered him a tight-lipped nod and stepped into the chaos all around them.

Molly was crying loudly as she removed a pair of scissors from a drawer and bent over her son's body. She wept as Bill and Charlie held their brother to the table tightly, binding him with spells and throwing their body weight onto his arms as much to hold him down as they did it to feel his living flesh in person. They held him down as Molly set to cutting the crusting skin from Ron's body, and Hermione could hear Percy throw up and then return with calm instruction for Arthur, George, and Ginny, who nodded quickly and ran in different directions.

Molly looked up and saw Hermione standing over Ron and her eyes widened.

"Get her out of here," she ordered, and in an instant, someone, anyone, had grabbed her by the waist and pulled her out of the kitchen.

"Wait," Hermione shrieked, "let me go!"

"Don't watch," she was instructed, and Hermione could hear George's voice behind her now, dropping whatever task he'd been instructed to do to keep her away from the grisly sight.

"I need to help him," she pushed, and George pulled her again.

Ginny ran past them carrying towels while Arthur returned from upstairs with Harry. She widened her eyes as she could see Harry's face finally, and could finally see the tears streaking from his eyes still. The panic in him was almost audible, his heartbeat almost drowning out the screaming and then Ron was silent and Hermione thrashed against George, who faltered with her in the silence.

"He's asleep," Percy answered their voiceless questions, and Hermione and George breathed deeply.

He was asleep.

And then Hermione remembered.

With a flick of her wand, George's hands released her momentarily and she dove into the floo, falling out in her own flat.

Hurrying to her medicine cabinet, she rifled through the vials until she found what she was looking for. It was the medication she still took for the unknown curse Dolohov had scarred her with.

Looking up to her reflection, Hermione lifted her shirt again for confirmation.

It was the same webbing on Ron's body.

And then she was back in the Burrow and throwing the vials down the counter beside him.

Molly, still cutting the necrotic tissue from her youngest son's body, looked at them briefly, eyes widening, before locking eyes with Hermione.

Sliding her shirt up to her waist, she watched as Molly's lips tightened together.

And then George was back, dragging her upstairs and closing themselves in Ron's bedroom.

"You need to let me help them," Hermione pleaded, her hair sparking and her fingers tingling.

George didn't care. He held steadfast and resolute.

"They've got it handled downstairs," he said firmly. He held himself against the door, his wand trained on her as she regarded the situation before her. She could stun him and run down, but then someone else would remove her. She could jump out the window, but then she wouldn't be the only one jumping. So too would her only chance at a future.

Her eyes welled with tears, and all she needed was for George to leave her alone so she could go and save Ron.

George blinked at the sudden emotions and offered her a hand.

"Ginny told me." He said quietly, and Hermione looked up at him.

"Are you very angry?"

George shook his head. He opened his mouth to respond, but a quiet knock on the door distracted him.

"Hermione?" Harry's voice quivered.

"I'm here!" Hermione called out, putting her hand against the wooden frame.

"Molly needs you downstairs for a moment…"

Hermione looked up at George, who nodded and took a step away from the door. She tore it open and ran downstairs, and George bit his lower lip to keep himself from his emotions.

"Do you-" Harry started, but George waved his hand.

"I can't." He choked. "Not again. Not after Fred." And Harry understood. He approached George cautiously, and just as George had done for him so recently, he pulled his friend into a hug. George gasped and leaned into Harry and let himself cry for only a minute before pulling himself up and wiping his eyes.

"You good?" Harry asked after a moment, and George struggled for words.

"He's my baby brother," he responded after a while. "I don't know what we'd do without him."

Harry pursed his lips and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze before standing aside and letting George pass. As he listened to the steps hop down the stairs and into the kitchen, Harry pulled open one of Ron's drawers and put his hand against a large heavy jumper with a stretched out R on the front.

He thought of his own knitted jumper back at Grimmauld Place. He used to wear it all the time, but it had felt wrong to bring it to Hermione's flat with everything going on.

Downstairs, things had quieted down. Ron was sleeping, and from what he could hear, he knew that Bill and Charlie were helping Molly seal his wounds with whatever spells they could perform and whatever balms and vials Hermione provided from her stash of medications. He could hear that he was easier to put back together than Hermione had been all those years ago.

And then Harry looked at himself in the mirror in Ron's room, and he cleaned off his glasses. He looked bad, dirty, sweaty, tired. He looked like he stank. Then a tuft of something wiry and coarse caught his eyes on the knees of his trousers. He bent over to pick at the strange hairs that had stuck to the sticky and drying blood.

He held it up in the light and recognized it to be distinctly fur.

What had that prat said earlier?

A grim understanding bubbled in his stomach when he could put everything together, and he shamed himself for not realizing sooner what was going on.

He lost track of time in Ron's room, and there was so little time in the world for him to lose track of.

But they'd found Ron, and soon, when he could speak, they'd understand everything.


End file.
